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.

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/

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.

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)

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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