Montserrat Geothermal progress report

So far there is no Geothermal power plant Construction update and the first rumblings of discontent have appeared on a Yahoo discussion forum – skn.

Re: Whats going with GEOTHERMAL? LONG TIME NO HEAR !

Premier Parry says if there’s no geothermal energy in Nevis by Dec.
20010, WIP will be thrown under the bus and….., God alone knows what
will happen next.
As per record, I won’t miss a heartbeat about what our good premier
says.

—-original Message—–
From: xxxx
To: skn@yahoogroups.com <skn@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sat, Dec 5, 2009 11:31 am
Subject: Whats going with GEOTHERMAL? LONG TIME NO HEAR !

This exchange does not sent a great message to those of us waiting for a progress report on the Construction of the Geothermal plant on Nevis. Construction should be well underway by now — one would think seeing that 2010 is just a few short weeks away.

This quote below is from a news item from the Virgin Islands.

“The studies concluded that Nevis has a potential for approximately 900 megawatts of geothermal energy,” said Carlisle Powell, a junior minister with the Nevis government. “To put this into context, our present electricity base load is approximately 6.5 megawatts; we peak around nine megawatts.” (1)

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The question we might ask ourselves after reading that quote might be:

Nevis is approximately 35 square miles, how large  and how many “foot prints” of geothermal power plant would it take to produce 900 MW of electrical power?

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Let us compare New Zealand and Nevis.

New Zealand is comprised of two large islands and has a land mass of 103,738 sq mi (2). “Geothermal power in New Zealand is a small but significant part of the energy generation capacity of the country, providing approximately 10% of the country’s electricity with installed capacity approaching 600 MW. . . . New Zealand, like only a small number of other countries worldwide, has numerous geothermal sites that could be developed for exploitation, and also boasts some of the earliest large-scale use of geothermal energy in the world.” (3)

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Geothermal power plants are getting smaller with each generation of power plant. Guadalupe, an island south of Montserrat and Nevis has been generating some of their power from Geothermal since 1986 and they have added a second power plant which is much smaller than the first power plant. (4)

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New Zealand's Ohaaki Power Station

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Sources

(1) http://www.onepaper.com/stthomasvi/?v=d&i=&s=News:Local&p=1243829769

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand#Geography_and_environment

(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_New_Zealand

(4)  http://www.harvestcleanenergy.org/conference/HCE6/Bloomquist.pdf

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.