Archive for September, 2010
Geothermal Education Day on tap
In California, Calpine Corp.’s Cartwright Geothermal Visitors Center will host a Geothermal Education Day on Friday, Nov. 5. The company is inviting the general public to come and hear presentations on Calpine’s geothermal operations at the Geysers, bus trips to a geothermal power plant and continental breakfast. Reservations are strongly recommended; please call 707-987-4270 or [...]
Ram updates San Jacinto-Tizate drilling
In Nevada, Ram Power, Corp. announced successful initial tests of well 9-3 at its San Jacinto-Tizate project site in Leon, Nicaragua. The initial 14 hour flow testing produced separated steam at a rate of 187,000 lbs./hr at an inlet turbine design pressure range of 85 bpsig with production from a down-hole zone that exceeded 500 [...]
Kenya to get $100 million IFC loan for energy projects
In Kenya, World Bank branch International Finance Corp. will lend $100 million for sustainable energy projects in Kenya over the next five years. The IFC is talking with over a dozen local banks who would ultimately finance the projects. The government has targeted $2.5 billion in renewable energy projects, primarily in geothermal, where there [...]
Mo Money: DOE finds two sources for another $22 M for GT development
In Washington, DC, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced two sets of funding initiatives with an impact on the geothermal industry. The first directs a full $20 million to seven projects that “research, develop and demonstrate cutting-edge geothermal technologies”.
The second turns out to be a $1.9 million funding from DOE’s Small Business Phase III Xlerator [...]
Hot springs parcel will go up to bid, again
In Colorado, if the third time is truly the charm, then the U.S. Bureau of Land Management will finally pull off a geothermal lease sale in the state. It has scheduled the sale of a 799-acre parcel of land near Mount Princeton Hot Springs in Cha ffee County for November 10. It was postponed in [...]
Drilling finds geothermal resource near Miskolc
In Hungary, a geothermal resource has been confirmed by Pannergy near Miskolc. The resource was predicted by tests and analysis by Mannvit Engineering. Drilling by Pannergy, a Hungarian energy company, began near Miskolc last spring and last week hot water was discovered at about 6,500 feet. Short-term well tests suggest that the well may supply [...]
Renewables produce 73% of NZ’s electricity
In New Zealand, the Ministry of Economic Development said that 73% of the total of 10,831 GWh of electricity generated in the June quarter was from renewable generation. Geothermal generation was up 23% from the same quarter last year and was due in no small part to the opening of the 132 MW Nga Awa [...]
Second round GT challenge criteria set
In England, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has put up another $1.56 million in second round funding for the Deep Geothermal Challenge Fund and released the criteria companies must meet. The funding will be available for capital expenditure in financial year 2010-11 in the form of grants for projects exploring the potential [...]
Jail goes to ground for cooling and heating
In Kansas, the new Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility willopen a 464 bed facility in October that will use geothermal heat pumps for heating and cutting energy costs by about $100,000 annually. The system has 480 wells, each 280 feet deep. These wells hold high density water filled tubes made of polyethylene that goes on [...]
Opinion: Oilsands energy misplaced; dig deeper
Writing to the Edmonton Journal, D. Ryane, Lethbridge says “Since we’re prepared to drill for just about anything else in Alberta, why not geothermal energy? When I worked in the oilpatch, all drilling operations were required to have an engineer record depth, temperature, pressure, etc., and send core samples to the Alberta government. Those records [...]
