Montserrat Geothermal progress report

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/

According to the CIPORE website Montserrat does NOT exist. The CIPORE website is the official source of information for the upcoming conference. Perhaps some non existent individuals from the non existent island of Montserrat will attend the Eastern Caribbean Geothermal Conference to be held in Nevis from 30 June to 2 July, 2009. Montserrat is not included in the list of place names on the right side of the CIPORE website, nor on the Conference main page.(1)

Think Energy’s website links to the CIPORE with the official Conference information.  Montserrat does appear on the agenda with this little listing: “Session three will deal with the topic ‘Situation and Perspectives of Geothermal Development in Eastern Caribbean Countries’. The moderator will be Minister of Public Utilities, NIA Hon. Carlisle Powell, with presentations from the governments of Montserrat and Dominica.”

Background information about Montserrat’s current geothermal-political climate

In Montserrat Geothermal information seems to be a National SECRET. So there has been NO information FROM the Government Montserrat regarding exactly who is attending this conference and WHO is making this presentation in Montserrat’s name. Apparently the plan is to secretly drill and then secretly install a power plant and secretly hook up the power while the island is asleep. Montserrat is a COLONY of the UK. Due to the “volcano crisis” the island is under the complete control of the Governor, who is an appointee of the British who oversee this island. ALL control over any development of Geothermal power appears to be under the thumb of the Governor and of DFID - UK Department for International Development. Perhaps it is Montserrat status as a colony of England is why Montserrat is not listed on CIPORE’s website?  The Governor of Montserrat changes every three years. Every three years a new civil servant (appointed Governor) arrives on island and has to learn all about living with a live volcano and the intricacies of local island politics. (Hopefully one day this satirical statement can be retracted — when the geothermal plans and progress in Montserrat becomes transparent and open to public review.)

The Conference website is hosted by CIPORE, which stands for Caribbean Information Platform on Renewable Energy. This website is registered to an individual listing an address in Jamacia. A footnote on this website says: “CIPORE is the premiere portal for renewable energy information in the Caribbean”.

Ironically “Montserrat” appears nowhere on the index page of the CIPORE website. Even a search of the page yields “Phrase not found”. Montserrat is not on the list of participating countries either.

According to the official conference website this is what will be covered at the conference:
•   “State-of-the-art” geothermal exploration and exploitation
•    Situation & perspectives of geothermal development in the Eastern Caribbean
•    Challenges & opportunities for geothermal development in the Eastern Caribbean: proposals for a New Agenda
•    Geothermal exploration and development in Nevis (includes field trip)
•    Training opportunities in geothermal

There is no charge for participation in this Conference however participation is by invitation only.”

Think GeoEnergy has a decent summary of the topics that the Eastern Caribbean Geothermal Conference will cover.

Missing in the planned AGENDA of the Eastern Caribbean Geothermal Conference is any mention of Mineral mining of the geothermal brine. Secrets like this won’t stay under wraps for long. The fact that Kerry McDonald holds a patent for a process to extract minerals from geothermal brine was discovered using a google search. Kerry McDonald is the CEO of the company in charge of the Geothermal project on Nevis: “Financing the Project” will be presented by Financial Controller of West Indies Power Nevis Ltd. Mr. Dima Apockinas while the Company’s Chief Executive Officer Mr. Kerry Mc Donald and General Manager Mr. Rawlinson Isaac will speak about the company.” (click on underlined link and then go to the bottom of the article to see the context of the above quote.)

The people of Montserrat really need to be kept in the geothermal information loop.

Sources

(1) CIPORE stands for Caribbean Information Platform on Renewable energy

http://cipore.org/1st-eastern-geothermal-conference-2009/

(2) DFID – UK Department for International Development

http://www.dfid.gov.uk/About-DFID/

(3) http://thinkgeoenergy.com/archives/1871

The link below lists topics and participants at the —-

Eastern Caribbean Geothermal Energy Project (Geo-Caraïbes)
Stakeholder Consultation
Roseau, Dominica – 2006 (1)

http://www.oas.org/dsd/reia/Documents/geo-caraibes.html

The list of participants and islands represented are similar to the list of 2004 (link at right in blog roll). Cuba was included in the 2006 conference.

Guadeloupe with the granddaddy of Geothermal plants in the Caribbean was also represented at this meeting.

Gerald W. Huttrer, Geothermal Management Company, Inc had a presentation on: Geothermal Potential of St. Kitts and Nevis Islands.

Dominica had two separate presentations: Geothermal Project and Dominica Geothermal Exploration was presented Dr. Simon Young.

Saint Lucia also had a presentation.

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One of the Eastern Caribbean Island with geothermal potential is missing — MONTSERRAT! Notice that Dr. Simon Young was at this conference, so surely Montserrat wasn’t accidentally forgotten. Dr. Simon Young was the first director of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory, at the very beginning of Montserrat’s Volcano “crisis”.

If we remember our history — way back in 2006 there was an election in Montserrat and just before that election the Committee for the Redevelopment of Montserrat (CRM) discovered that the elected Government of Montserrat had negotiated (but not yet signed) a contract with Dr. Kerry McDonald. After strong protests by citizens the contract was not signed. It was argued by the CRM that the contract was unfair to Montserrat. This is the second time that this blog has covered the 2006 pre-election Geothermal episode. (See Nevis and Geothermal article below for more details.)

WHY wasn’t Montserrat represented at this 2006 Geothermal conference?

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In 1999 Montserrat was mentioned in this document: Geothermal Small power generation opportunities in the Leeward Islands of the Caribbean Sea, by Gerald W. Huttrer, Geothermal Management Company, Inc. Frisco, Colorado. Huttrer, who attended the 2006 Caribbean Geothermal conference wrote:

“Montserrat – Even before the 1995 eruptions, the southwest-
ern flank of the Soufrière Hills volcano was the site of solfataric
activity and of numerous thermal springs. There was also sig-
nificant seismic activity and several well developed fracture
systems transecting the volcano.” (2)

**********************************

In a paper published in March 2008, Erouscilla P. Joseph (Seismic Research Unit, University of the West Indie) wrote:

Montserrat
Geothermal Sites / Projects:
•Montserrat has an estimated 940
MWe of geothermal power
potential.
•Even before the 1995 eruption,
the southwestern flank of the
Soufrière Hills Volcano was the
site of solfataric activity and of
numerous thermal springs.
•There was also significant
seismic activity, and several
well developed fracture systems
transecting the volcano (Huttrer,
1998  (3)

**************************************************

Sources:

(1) http://www.oas.org/dsd/reia/Documents/geo-caraibes.html

(2)  http://geoheat.oit.edu/bulletin/bull20-2/art4.pdf

(3) http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/sids/2008_roundtable/presentation/energy_joseph.pdf

Geothermal Energy Potential in the Caribbean Region, Erouscilla P. Joseph, Seismic Research Unit, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad

It might be educational to plot the progress of Nevis Island’s move toward Geothermal Electrical power. Nevis is Montserrat’s neighbor on the west. Guadeloupe, Montserrat’s southern neighbor, already has at least two Geothermal Electrical power plants in operation.

Using Google and the search words, Nevis Geothermal, we get 57,000 hits in a few seconds. The first hit is called “Nevis Geothermal Energy Exploration” from 2007.

Earlier this month Chief Executive Officer of West Indies Power Nevis Ltd. Mr. Kerry Mc Donald accompanied by General Manager Mr. Rawlinson Isaac and Duke University geothermal expert Mr. Reed Malin invited Minister of Powell and his Permanent Secretary, Mr. Ernie Stapleton, to  the Bush Hill fault where exploration work for geothermal energy was ongoing.

“We are pleased to say that we have discovered geothermal resources in five places on the island and the drilling will begin in October on these.  Based on that drilling we believe that come mid 2008, that the power plant, the initial temporary power plant for about 6 megawatts will be installed and will be in operation.” 26 September 07

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The next Nevis Geothermal news is more recent 19 May 09 (click the date on the left for the full article).

“Nevis’ Geothermal Agreement designed to put money into Island’s coffers”. According to the article Nevis will recieve 5% of Gross revenue from the developers of Geothermal power on Nevis. But there is also a 25 year tax holiday being granted to the developers of Geothermal in Nevis. At the same time the Government of Nevis was able to obtain a stock option of 10% for the people of Nevis.

This article rises more questions about the ownership of Geothermal power in Nevis. Evidently the Government of Nevis does not own the power company? Does the Government of Nevis have any input or control over the corporations which perhaps now owns Geothermal power in Nevis??

The next story from the Google search deals with Nevis plan to host a East Caribbean Geothermal Conference.

“Nevis will play host to a geothermal conference in two weeks at the Mount Nevis Hotel from June 30- July 02, the first of its kind to be held in the Eastern Caribbean.”

Fans of Montserrat are asking: “Will Montserrat be represented at this conference?”

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NOW the question for Google is how many hits will we get when we pair “Montserrat + Geothermal”?

There were 20,000 fewer hits — for example we these paragraphs found this: link

Montserrat Geothermal Investigations Move To Second Phase

Investigations of Montserrat’s geothermal energy potential moved to their second phase last week with the signing on Wednesday of a contract between the government of Montserrat and EGS, Inc., an American firm specializing in geological exploration with an emphasis on the evaluation of renewable energy resources.

The contract is for the execution of phase 2 of geothermal exploration on the island, under a project funded by the British Department for International Development (DFID).

In January 2008, DFID approved a budget of up to approximately £800,000 to fund a phased geothermal evaluation process consisting of:

1. Phase 1: Scoping survey to define the scope of the further investigations required;
2. Phase 2: Geophysical, geological and geochemical investigations culminating in
recommendations for locations, size and depths for investigatory drilling;
3. Phase 3: Small diameter test drilling to attempt to prove the geothermal resource

The phase 2 exploration activities are scheduled to take place in areas around Cork Hill, Richmond Hill, Foxes Bay and Sturge Park.”

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Now let’s take a few steps back in time, thanks to the power of the Internet.

The past history of Montserrat involvement in Geothermal also showed up in the Google search. Remember way back in 2006 in Montserrat there was an election. It was discovered by citizens that a Geothermal agreement was going to be signed by the current Government of Montserrat and a Geothermal Development company. Link here. There were well attended meetings held all over the island. The original story at the link above was by Karen “Lioness” Allen.

BRADES, Montserrat: Right on the brink of a new election, the current government of Montserrat is now being accused of fostering an agreement that is being referred to by members of the public as a ‘criminal sellout’ of the country’s natural resources.

In early March, angry members of the public gathered at the Ministry of Communication & Works. Their purpose was to confront the man responsible for, and rumored to be about to sign a contract between the Government of Montserrat and the West Indian Power Ltd (WIPL), owned by Kerry McDonald.

The objective of this contract is to develop Montserrat’s geothermal energy. The protestors’ biggest concern was the agreement to grant a 25-year monopoly for the exploitation and use of Montserrat’s geothermal energy in return for royalties amounting to four percent of gross revenues.

Upon arrival to work, Minister of Communications & Works, John Wilson, was bombarded with an array of questions and emotionally underlined allegations.(The rest of the article can be found at this link).

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Oh! Montserrat does indeed have a history with Kerry McDonald, the developer of Geothermal on Nevis. The power of the Internet and simple words used to compare two islands is most educational!

If we look at the agreement that Nevis so masterfully negotiated with the developers of Geothermal on Nevis we can see that it is nearly identical to the deal that the former officials of the Government of Montserrat ALMOST signed way back in 2006.

Click on the links above and you will see the history of Nevis and Montserrat’s steps toward Geothermal power are archived on the Internet. Those of us who attended the meetings on Montserrat back in 2006 remember well the deal that almost was signed. No wonder the name Kerry McDonald sounded so familiar to many of us.

Perhaps the slow turtle like progress that Montserrat seems to be making toward Geothermal power is the surer route to eventual success?

YOU can be sure that we will be following the developments of Geothermal on BOTH Montserrat and  Nevis.

The Contract to begin the survey for Geothermal Sources on Montserrat has been signed!! This was reported on ZJB radio in Montserrat.

Montserrat is a Caribbean Island in an chain of islands or arch of islands. Islands surrounding Montserrat: Antigua, Nevis, St. Kitts and to the south Guadeloupe.

Montserrat is a colony of Britain, or what is known in the UK as an Overseas Dependent Territory. Montserrat’s neighboring island of Nevis has surveyed for sources of Geothermal power generation and is supposed be well underway toward their objective of electrical power from Geothermal wells.

Geothermal is as close to “GREEN” power as possible. A well is drilled into a deep underground source of trapped water, the HOT water comes to the surface and is sent into a power generation plant (YouTube links are coming). The cooled water is returned to the earth (via another well). So that eventually the water will be reused.