Montserrat Geothermal progress report

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.

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.