Geothermal updates
There isn’t much at all to report. According to the Google updates, the Nevis Geothermal project is still supposed to be online next year. The CEO of the project, McDonald, was apparently off island and now he has returned. Apparently the PR generator is back at work promoting Nevis Geothermal, because similar updates have been posted to my email by the Google web crawler. Let’s hope that the citizens of Nevis see some rapid progress toward the goal of abundant Geothermal power.
Meanwhile on Montserrat — the volcano keeps the broom makers busy. The inhabited areas of the Northwest part of the island saw the results of the current eruption in the form of ash. Which means that Montserrat’s geothermal has been placed on the back burner yet again. (Nothing in writing — but that would be a guess that no odd’s maker would take.)
How about the folks who took the mummy found on Montserrat — BEFORE the first eruption — return that mummy to Montserrat. Hey — if the SAC can make up statistical numbers using SWAG (scientific wild ass guessing) — perhaps some respect for the goddess of the volcano might also be in order??
Where is the construction?
Where is the Construction on Nevis?
That would be construction on the Geothermal Power Plant which was supposed to be on line in 2009, but that slipped to 2010. Those of us interested in Geothermal keep waiting to hear the comments on the building progress from Nevis. Google updates has not sent any Nevis Geothermal updates in several weeks.
At the same time it would be nice to hear about Geothermal related drilling on Montserrat. Last we heard a contract had been signed and then SILENCE. Of course it is now the hurricane season. Then again the MVO has declared the prime drilling area off limits — so that might be the reason why there are no official announcements. Perhaps certain individuals associated in some fashion with the Government of Montserrat who told someone who lives full time in Montserrat that Geothermal would NEVER happen in his lifetime (the non Government associated person)– perhaps the somewhat, sort of attached to the Government of Montserrat individual knows what he is talking about?
Right now all that is going on, besides watching for hurricanes, is POLITICS. There are lots of speeches and promises of a more super duper improved future IF votes are cast for X politician. Politics are the same the world over. Promices and manifestos — and then the reality of governing without enough income to pay for all the promises. Yet people keep believing the politicians and even manage to vote.
However, Montserrat still has an appointed Governor with the final say — because Montserrat is still in a state of emergency and under the thumb of the UK. So Montserrat elects a slate of politicians who get to play at being politicians — as far as the Governor will allow them. At least this governor doesn’t attend Parliament in fluffy tea frocks.
No news on drilling
Neither Nevis nor Montserrat have posted any updates on drilling according to the lack of Google alerts found in my inbox. It seems that in the months since a contact for drilling was awarded, not much has happened. Seems like a few hundred years ago that the French and the English were both fighting over ownership of Montserrat. Obviously the British won and now Montserrat is a British colony.
IF Montserrat were a French colony instead, more than likely Montserrat would have an operation Geothermal plant. Of course the French could not stop the volcano from doing her dance.
Did anyone notice?? July is over and there was no new eruption or dance from the volcano. In the past few years a July display of the Volcano’s spirits was half expected and half dreaded.
There was some sort of “secret” report from Nevis on the “official” Geothermal website. According to the Google alert this information could only be accessed via a secret password. Seem like the Geothermal power plant should be well into its construction phase. So far all the PR photos are of geothermal well heads in the background and a group of smiling men.
For the sake of the electric customers on Nevis let’s hope that they get to see a reduction in their power bills sometime very soon.
Electric cars for Montserrat – someday
Coda Automotive will be introducing an Electric car into California in 2010 (next year).
The batteries for electric autos have been one of the stalling points of the popular acceptance of electric cars. Coda Automotive will be involved in a joint venture to create the super battery — Lithium batteries. Ironically Lithium is one of the minerals in the brine mentioned in the story below about Geothermal plants being half Geothermal and half mining operations. Wouldn’t it be interesting if the lithium mined in Montserrat were to be used in a battery FACTORY on Montserrat?? It could happen.
Imagine IF Montserrat had a functioning Geothermal Electrical power plant up and running.
Well first Monlec would need to install battery recharging units at either private homes or in public lots throughout the island. Next question would the fuel monopoly on Montserrat start to howl in protest?
Sources:
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/06/03/miles-ev-launches-coda-automotive-for-full-speed-electric-sedan/
Carbon Credit Trading
Carbon Credit Trading
Here is a hypothetical situation on a mythical island somewhere among a chain of islands — Volcano islands. This island is somewhere in the South Pacific.
One day while the citizens of this hypothetical island are enjoying the endless sun and watching the tourist arrive on boats and planes they notice some serious businessmen arriving with brief cases and they are met by the guy who just won the last election. By the next week word is leaking out that these businessmen are serious about helping the citizens of this island lower their electric bill and the answer is Geothermal. Cheaper electricity — where do we sign?
Financing for the Geothermal power plant is found and in a few months the people of this island are seeing lower power bills. Everyone is celebrating.
There are plenty of lawyers on this island and they negotiated a fair deal for the people of the island. The power plant won’t get in the way of the tourist, who probably won’t even venture up the back road where the power plant is located.
It turns out that since Geothermal is considered a green or non polluting industry that companies are willing to pay the owners of the Hypothetical Geothermal on the Hypothetical Island money in trade so that these companies can stay in business. This is a win win deal for owners of the Hypothetical Geothermal power plant and the owners of the companies.
Then one of the local kids who went off college, comes home and starts asking about the income from selling carbon credits. Hey kid — what are you talking about? We have tiny electrical bills. The kid knows that the Geothermal power plant is producing 150 MW and is exporting a large chunk of the electricity to near-by islands. The kid, now a young woman and a college graduate learned about Carbon Credit Trading in her economics class.
Did the lawyers and politicians know about Carbon Credit Trading and the potential income from this to the island?
The kid is busy using her lap top computer and the new Internet wireless service on her island to search for information about Carbon Credit Trading. In this not so hypothetical real world — Carbon Credit Trading is very real and there is more than enough information to put us all to sleep for the next decade.
Carbon credits create a market for reducing greenhouse emissions by giving a monetary value to the cost of polluting the air. Emissions become an internal cost of doing business and are visible on the balance sheet alongside raw materials and other liabilities or assets.
By way of example, consider a business that owns a factory putting out 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in a year. Its government is an Annex I country that enacts a law to limit the emissions that the business can produce. So the factory is given a quota of say 80,000 tonnes per year. The factory either reduces its emissions to 80,000 tonnes or is required to purchase carbon credits to offset the excess. After costing up alternatives the business may decide that it is uneconomical or infeasible to invest in new machinery for that year. Instead it may choose to buy carbon credits on the open market from organizations that have been approved as being able to sell legitimate carbon credits.
We should consider the impact of manufacturing alternative energy sources. For example, the energy consumed and the Carbon emitted in the manufacture and transportation of a large wind turbine would prohibit a credit being issued for a predetermined period of time.
* One seller might be a company that will offer to offset emissions through a project in the developing world, such as recovering methane from a swine farm to feed a power station that previously would use fossil fuel. So although the factory continues to emit gases, it would pay another group to reduce the equivalent of 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere for that year.
* Another seller may have already invested in new low-emission machinery and have a surplus of allowances as a result. The factory could make up for its emissions by buying 20,000 tonnes of allowances from them. The cost of the seller’s new machinery would be subsidized by the sale of allowances. Both the buyer and the seller would submit accounts for their emissions to prove that their allowances were met correctly. [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_credits ]
Sources:
http://www.greenchipstocks.com/aqx_p/8087?gclid=CK-o_t_c3ZsCFQXGsgod7mED_Q
http://www.cantorco2e.com/Environment/?page=Voluntary_Services&gclid=CLmMnI3e3ZsCFVlM5Qod4TFB_w
http://www.verdantix.com/index.cfm/papers/Products.Details/product_id/42/first-rggi-auction-is-a-crucial-proof-of-concept/-?gclid=CK3wp6re3ZsCFQRM5QodZ0UTAg
Nevada Geothermal Power
Nevada Geothermal Power is the name of a electrical power company, which has operations in at least three US States, Nevada, California and Utah. A large share of Nevada’s Geothermal power is exported to California. The Sci-Fi looking power towers can be seen going from Nevada through the Mojave desert on their way to Los Angeles and the areas of high power consumption. Nevada is expected to be the leader in Geothermal power generation — and you probably thought that Nevada’s draw was just the gambling casinos.
Here is some interesting information about Geothermal in Nevada:
On geothermal resource maps, Nevada stands out for the abundance of geothermal resources within its borders. About half the state is covered in geothermal hot spots of varying quality.“There’s tons of geothermal hot spots in Nevada,” said Lisa Shevenell, director of the Great Basin Center for Geothermal Energy at UNR.
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In all, Nevada has more than 630,000 acres of BLM land leased to geothermal developers. In the last land lease sale BLM auctioned off more than 105,000 acres to geothermal developers.That sale brought Nevada more than $14 million in revenue, with about $7 million more being split between counties where the leases are located. The 2007 lease sale saw 122,848 acres leased to geothermal companies.
. . . . .
Geothermal energy is expected to cost about 7.3 cents per kilowatt hour by 2030 compared to 8.1 cents per kilowatt for wind, 12.5 cents per kilowatt hour for concentrating solar thermal and about 22.9 cents per kilowatt hour for solar photovoltaic, according to the Energy Department. By contrast, “clean coal” technology is expected to cost 7.6 cents per kilowatt hour by 2030 and advanced natural gas generated electricity is expected to cost 8.6 cents per kilowatt hour. Geothermal might be cheaper, but it’s also much tougher to develop mostly because of the time it takes to get a plant operating. The process can take from six years to a decade, according to Daniel Fleischmann, project initiation manager for geothermal giant Ormat.
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It usually takes about three years just to do resource exploration, lease land and obtain permits for exploratory drilling, Fleischmann told a group of geothermal energy engineers and developers at the conference. That can be stretched out even longer if the mineral rights on the property are shared by several holders or if there are sensitive environmental or cultural issues. It can be tough to get a geothermal project financed even in a good credit market. Energy project financing is highly dependent on the power purchase agreements with utilities. But those are much tougher to obtain for geothermal plants because about half the cost of development comes before a site’s resource is fully understood.
Laws involving mineral rights laws in the US are well defined, as are land use laws. In comparison, the Caribbean seems more like the frontier days of the old west where few if any land use laws existed. Nevada is a huge state where geothermal plants can be tucked away on large tracts of land, not so on small Caribbean islands. Admittedly the newest geothermal power plant on Guadeloupe Island, has been tucked away behind trees so that the sun bathers on the near by beaches most often are not aware that just up the hill is the power plant that supplies the power for the hotel’s air conditioning and other essential needs.
The down side of geothermal power for Caribbean islands would be securing the land for the geothermal plants. Next would be spelling out exactly who owns the Mineral Rights (laws may need to be enacted to spell out mineral rights involving mining the geothermal brine). Many of the islands are tourist destination and the power plants must be planned so that this source of revenue is not sacrificed for geothermal power. Tourism is an industry which provides employment for a large segment of many Caribbean island.
Tourism on Montserrat is another story, and with half the island mostly off limits, hiding a geothermal plant might not be a major consideration. The 2004 and 2006 meetings of Caribbean geothermal stakeholders addressed the issue of the lack of geothermal related laws on islands with geothermal potential.
Map of the general location of geothermal plants in Nevada. Source for this map is (and a larger map) is at Nevada Geothermal Power.
Reviews of Nevis Geothermal conference
The first report was from St. Lucia. “St. Lucia’s Minister of Physical Development, Urban Renewal, Housing, Environment and Local Government Mr. Richard Frederick said Thursday that his island had much to learn from the Nevis geothermal experience.” Same report also here .
Dominica stepped up to the plate next with a glowing report of the Nevis Geothermal Conference.
“An official of the Dominica Government praised Nevis for its decision to host the 1st Geothermal Conference in the Caribbean. Chief Technical Officer in the Ministry of Energy Public Utilities and Ports Mr. Lucien Blackmore said the well planned and executed event, provided limitless gains for Dominica’s geothermal energy plans.
Mr. Blackmore, who was accompanied by Senior Projects Officer Mr. Michael Fadelle, told the Department of Information at the close of the three-day conference on Friday, that Dominica was also pursuing an aggressive energy development policy for the development of the island’s resources.
“The gains from this week’s session I think are limitless… I think the gains for coming to Nevis cannot be overstated. It was very much invaluable and based on what I know where we are in Dominica, we will benefit tremendously from the conference,” he said.”
Harness a volcano to power Montserrat
How’s that for an advertising campaign for Montserrat?
That was borrowed from
Harness a Volcano to Power Your Town
A geothermal plant near Santa Rosa a small town north of San Francisco (California, USA) produces enough energy to supply the power needs of San Francisco.
It turns out that Google is investing in Geothermal.
Geothermal potential of Caribbean
There is a whole lot of Geothermal potential in the Caribbean, as those of us who have seen the fireworks from Montserrat’s volcano know all too well. This is sort of like a love/hate relationship. We Love the heat from the volcano which gives us super heated liquid and/or steam for Geothermal power. But we Hate the mess that the live volcano causes on small islands. Right now, Montserrat’s volcano is being temperamental, not shutting down and becoming dormant as we all had hoped would happen YEARS ago. So being a volcano island is a good thing — IF the resident volcano minds her manners and remains dormant.
As the fireworks went off to celebrate the Independence holiday, google’s search engine was aiding in research, using the surname Huttrer + Geothermal. Independence Day seems like appropriate timing since 39 countries could rely on geothermal for 100% power for their citizen’s needs. Changing over from diesel generators to “in country” produced power would certainly be like declaring Independence from Oil Day. Imagine the 39 Independence Day celebrations (the 39 is from the list of 39 countries that could get 100% of their power from geothermal.) Dr. Gerry Huttrer, graduate of Washington State University, name appears on many Geothermal related articles and he seems to be an authority about the Geothermal potential of the Caribbean region. His name appears on the source document most often cited by politicians from Nevis when speaking of the Geothermal potential MW of Nevis. [The link in the article below turned out to be a dead link, this happens often. After much searching I found the original paper that is usually used as the bench mark reference about the Caribbean's Geothermal potential: www.bl-a.com/ECB/PDFFiles/GeoResLAC.pdf Even with a high speed internet connect this document is slow to download. Also you may need to update your copy of Adobe Acrobat before you can complete the download. This article should have been in the DOE database, but it was not. The study was funded by the US DOE.]
Huttrer (3) ranks the islands, in order of development potential, as follows:
1. Guadeloupe
2. St. Lucia
3. Dominica
4. St. Vincent
5. Nevis
6. Saba
7. St. Kitts
8. Grenada
9. Martinique
10. Montserrat
11. Statia
The Huttrer + Geothermal google search illustrates that by changing one word in a search variable is like looking at an old problem in a new way. New documents appeared, or perhaps moved ahead to the first 15 pages of the google search. What is interesting is that perhaps because of Montserrat’s very active volcano — Montserrat’s status as a potential Geothermal nations seems to be overlooked. There are several maps where the island of Montserrat is shown but not named, between Nevis and Antigua, Guadeloupe to the south. Could it be that Montserrat has not joined any of the International Geothermal organizations?
Invest in Geothermal???
“Green Investing” is a relatively new investment strategy and there are a few websites offering Geothermal investment information like Green Chips Review. Using the search string: “Investing in Geothermal”, resulted in 721,000 hits in under a minute. Using oil to generate power on small islands was relatively easy, the oil tankers deliver and the diesel generators produce electrical power. Except now the cost of oil has become a huge burden to small developing island nations — the same islands that could be producing their own power from the “hot rocks under their feet”. The problem with investing in any emerging technology is that it takes time to understand the new game and to know the players.
There will be “snake oil” sellers among the ethical companies and development deals. Humans appear to need a crisis to get them to change their ways and look for alternatives. The ever increasing price per barrel of oil means steeply increasing electric power bills. For many Caribbean countries, their major industry is tourism. If the costs to visit a tropical island far exceeds what most people are willing to pay during major economic downturns, then the island’s economy will suffer. “Caribbean states fight to ride out economic storm“, was one of the similar headlines across the Caribbean region. The increasing cost of a barrel of oil is harmful to island Nations in the short term, but in the long term the price of oil will push Nations to look for alternatives, which also happen to be better for the environment.
Investing in Geothermal (2) is available from the IGA.
# The International Geothermal Association (IGA), founded in 1988, is a scientific, educational and cultural organization established to operate worldwide. It has more than 2000 members in 65 countries. The IGA is a non-political, non-profit, non-governmental organization in special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, and Partner of the European Union for the Campaign for Take Off (CTO) the Renewable Energy. IGA is now affiliated to the Renewable Energy Alliance (IREA)
# OBJECTIVE: to encourage research, development and utilization of geothermal resources worldwide through the compilation, publication and dissemination of scientific and technical data and information, both within the community of geothermal specialists and between geothermal specialists and the general public.
Oops it looks like the IGA neglected to list the Eastern Caribbean Geothermal Conference just recently concluded on Nevis. Reporting from this conference was sparce, going by the newsreports apparently only politicians from Nevis and St. Kitts has anything of note to say about Geothermal. However, the agenda of the conference listed several sessions that will hopefully produce some useful technical and overview papers.
Sources
(1) http://www.bl-a.com/ECB/GreenGreen/123100.htm#Pipeline
(2) http://www.iea.org/dbtw-wpd/textbase/nppdf/free/2000/weo2002.pdf
(3) http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/sids/2008_roundtable/presentation/energy_joseph.pdf
Edited to add the link to the 1999 DOE database on Caribbean Geothermal potential.
Geothermal Conference – Nevis
The Opening remarks for the Eastern Caribbean Geothermal conference were given by Hon. Carlisle Powell. The article appears to have been written by the Government of Nevis and St. Kitts. There are two photos from the Conference, the first is of the Hon. Carlisle Powell and the second is of the invited Conference participants.(1) SKNVibes.com
“A 1998 study by the United States Department of Energy revealed that Nevis had the potential to produce 900
megawatts of power. Current statistics indicate that the island utilised only 6.5megawatts of energy and peaked at about 9 megawatts.” (This is a quote from the above linked article.)
The executive summary of that report is here, with a link to the full pdf file here. These links no longer work. The pdf file is over 200 pages and it is a database of all know geothermal sources. As soon as an alternative link is found it will be posted. This link: www.bl-a.com/ECB/PDFFiles/GeoResLAC.pdf may work. The Database of Geothermal Resources in Latin American & the Caribbean was compiled and built by Liz. Battocletti of Bob Lawrence et. al. If this website closes down, google this phrase: “Database of Geothermal Resources in Latin American & the Caribbean”.
Nevis is among 39 countries which could be 100% Geothermal Powered!
39 COUNTRIES WHICH COULD BE 100% GEOTHERMAL POWERED
Country Population
Bolivia 7,957,000
Burundi 6,457,000
Comoros Islands 658,000
Costa Rica 3,841,000
Djibouti 623,000
Dominica 71,000
Ecuador 12,175,000
El Salvador 6,032,000
Ethiopia 59,649,000
Fiji 796,000
Grenada 93,000
Guadeloupe 443,000
Guatemala 10.801,000
Honduras 6,147,000
Iceland 276,000
Indonesia 206,338,000
Kenya 29,008,000
Malagasy Republic 15,057,000
Malawi 10.346,000
Martinique 389,000
Montserrat 11,000 [this population is incorrect, it is much lower, with only half of the island inhabitable due to the continuing volcano crisis on Montserrat. Emphasis and comment added to text by author.]
Mozambique 18,880,000
Nicaragua 4,807,000
Panama 2,767,000
Papua New Guinea 4,600,000
Peru 24,797,000
Philippines 72,944,000
Rwanda 6,604,000
Solomon Islands 417,000
Somalia 9,237,000
St Kitts & Nevis 39,000
St. Lucia 150,000
St. Vincent 112,000
Sudan 28,292,000
Tanzania 32,102,000
Tonga 98,000
Uganda 20,554,000
Vanuatu 182,000
Yemen 16,887,000
TOTAL 620,637,000
Good for Nevis! Let’s hope that more countries on the above list follow Iceland and Nevis’ lead. New Zealand is currently rated at about 25% of power from Geothermal and this report estimates that about 50% of New Zealand’s power could come from Geothermal.
It is unfortunate that the World’s Press seems more interested in covering the lives, deaths and trials of famous people, rather than the boring details of Geothermal power. We should be seeing live blogging from this conference or twittering or one of the social networking we hear so much about.
[edited to add link for Caribbean region database.]
