Business Spectator reports that Australian Ethical Equities Trust bought 11,000,000 Panax Geothermal shares for $1.43 million on July 1, becoming a substantial holder with 11,000,000 shares (5.53%).
An IPS report on Chile proves again that there is no such thing as a controversy-free energy resource. The Atacama indigenous community in Antofagasta is campaigning against Geotérmica del Norte, controlled by the National Geothermal Company, 51% owned by the Italian state company ENEL and 49% by the National Petroleum Company of Chile. Geotérmica del Norte is drilling four boreholes 2,000 to 2,500 metres deep to assess the technical and economic feasibility of electrical production from the El Taito geyser field in the northern Chilean region of Antofagasta. If the feasibility results prove satisfactory, the company will apply for the necessary permits to build a geothermal energy plant. The decision could be made by the end of the year.
You must have heard about the web site HowSTuffWorks.com. I found out that it opened a page on EGS. It calls it as Artificial Geothermal Energy. I think I like AGE or Artificial GEothermal Energy as a better descriptor than EGS or Enhanced/Engineered Geothermal Systems. Anyway, here is a web address to use when someone asks you for a reference that provides a quick summary on AGE: http://science.howstuffworks.com/earth/green-technology/energy-production/artificial-geothermal-energy.htm.
Research by University of Oviedo published in Renewable Energy this month suggests that abandoned mine shafts can be used to harvest geothermal heat. Unless you are in a temperature anomaly (e.g. the new orebody being mined in Mount Isa by Xtrata), I would not think it would be worh the effort. But I have not read the original article.
A new post at the Australian Academy of Science web site gives a good introduction to hot rocks geothermal energy. It is a good resource for high school science courses.
Vancouver-based Magma Energy buys from Geysir a minority interest in HS Orka (8.62% for US$20m). HS Orka is the largest privately owned energy company in Iceland, with installed geothermal power capacity of 175 megawatts from the Svartsengi and Reykjanes power plants. Magma Energy has been recently cashed up with a $100m IPO.
In an article from last week (but I only read it this morning), Robin Bromby of The Australian gives the rundown on four companies: Kuth, Geothermal Resources, Green Rock, and Panax. It is good to see geothermal energy starting to get prime time exposure again for the good reasons.
After drilling a US$1.6m slim hole and conducting a US$400k magneto-telluric survey in March 2009, the gas and steam samples from Magma reports that the measured temperatures exceed 200 oC at a depth of 650 m in its Maule property in Chile. The deep reservoir temperatures are estimated to exceed 290 oC. Based on the results obtained so far, SKM consultant Philip James White estimated an inferred resource of 7 EJ of thermal energy in place relative to 40 oC, capable of producing electricity at the rate of 140 MW for 30 years. The slim hole results and the resource estimate are being used as the basis for Magma's submission of a geothermal development plan to the Chilean Government for a 50 MW power project at its Maule property. Approval by the Chilean Government will enable additional drilling and infrastructure development to begin later in 2009.
Meanwhile in Australia, Beach Petroleum reports that for the week ending on 22 July, the Paralana-2 geothermal exploration well is drilling ahead of schedule at a depth of 796 meters.
Arrow Resources entered into an MOU with Four Crystal Funding Inc and GTherm Inc whereby Four Crystal buys $10m worth of Arrow stock at $1 a share and Arrow agrees to build and operate poer plants using the GTherm technology on its Indonesian properties. Four Crystal is an investment company founded in 2008 to pursue "suitable socially and environmentally constructive" investment opportunities. Earlier his month, it made an investment in Gtherm Inc. Gtherm technology is aiming to produce heat from a single well using an undisclosed heat pump technology. The UTC PureCycle is used to produced at the surface. The choice of PureCycle is based on its ability to work with heat sources as low as 74oC (so claims a GThem press release).
Business Wire reports on a new study from NYU Stern that examined the relative position of the geothermal energy with respect to other renewables and fossil fuels. The study by the NYU Stern Professor Melissa Schilling found that
The full paper was published in Energy policy and is available on http://w4.stern.nyu.edu/news/docs/JEPO_Technology_S_Curves.pdf.
In Australia, Rio Tinto advises the government to consider nuclear as the best hope since all else is too expensive. According to The Australian, Rio Tinto submission says that "overly optimistic assumptions on the viability of alternatives such as wind and geothermal power, as well as so-called clean coal technologies, have created a 'false optimism' which the government must challenge by commissioning new research". This is interesting advice coming from Rio, a very large thermal coal producer although it also is the majority shareholder in ERA, reportedly the largest Australian uranium producer.
A follow-up article on the PNNL's "new geothermal heat extraction method" gives a bit more information on the $1.2m project funded by the stimulus package. It looks like it is a nano-engineered heat exchange fluid that transfers the heat from geothermal brine to the power cycle fluid, say isopentane. PNNL calls it a "trinary" system (as opposed to "binary"). I am not convinced about the benefits for a standard brine-isopentane binary power plant. However, a high-performance heat exchange fluid would help a supercritical CO2 cycle, both on the birne side and on the condenser side. It is worth watching.
Closer to home, Petratherm announced yesterday that it has relinquished the Callabonna Tenements (GEL 157, 179), 700 km north of Adelaide, after the results of geophysical measurements and modelling failed to prove economically viable temperatures at depth.
It looks like one beneficiary from the relaxation of the three-uranium-mines policy could be the geothermal industry. Petrathem MD Terry Kallis announced over the weekend that the company hopes to develop an MOU to supply power to the proposed Four Mile Uranium Mine in north-east South Australia. He said that Petratherm also plans to supply geothermal power to the nearby Beverley Mine.
Twelve companies including Siemens, ABB, E.ON and RWE, signed an MOU to develop the Desertec Industrial Initiative – a EUR400bn (US$560bn) plan to build vast solar arrays in Africa and the Middle East and transmit the power to Europe. The plan is to provide 15% of Europe's power needs by 2050. While it is easy to get excited about it, only 0.25% of the required funding has been secured yet with a EUR1b grant from EU. There is also the small matter of building the transmission links from North Africa to Europe. Nevertheless, Power Engineering International reports that the story was big news in Germany by all accounts, leading news broadcasts across the major networks and appearing on the front page of newspapers. Several commentators likened the project to the moon landing of 1969.
Another article in Power Engineering International gives a brief on solar thermal developments. In terms of electricity generated per unit area, solar thermal systems are reported to be much more efficient than photovoltaics and they are also reported to be cheaper. These collect solar energy using concentrating collectors and can achieve temperatures 300-850 oC, depending on the degree of concentration. They require dedicated turbines and at the present these are steam turbines because. “There is a huge potential for CSP,” says Ole Hansen, head of the steam turbine business unit at MAN Turbo. “CSP power has an efficiency of more than 41 per cent compared to photovoltaic’s 15-16 per cent. The only problem at the moment is the large installation investment cost of almost €6000/kW ($8325/kW).” Siemens is promoting its SST-700 DRH turbine for standalone or hybrid (solar-boosted bottoming cycles for gas turbine plants) solar thermal applications. It is a dual-casing industrial reheat steam turbine. The high-pressure turbine is connected via a gearbox to the generator while the low-pressure turbine drives it directly. In this way the two turbine cylinders can operate at their dedicated optimum speed, which provides for high efficiency. These are encouraging developments for geothermal energy developers because more efficient turbines for solar thermal applications help the the geothermal power conversion applications as well. The concentrated solar power cycles have temperatures about 350 oC or higher and these are higher than typical EGS temperatures such as 200-250 oC. At 200-250oC steam is not the optimum cycle fluid but it is the only game in town -- at least until the Queensland Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence develops the supercritical CO2 turbine. In other words, watch this space.
More news have been published on the PNNL MOHC cycle blogged yesterday but we are stil short of technical details. "By the end of the calendar year, we plan to have a functioning bench-top prototype generating electricity," predicts PNNL Laboratory Fellow Pete McGrail.
You may also want to watch the interesting Reuters video on the direct use of geothermal energy in Kamchatka to heat open-air swimming pools and grow tropical vegetables.
There was an interesting press release from US DOE Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) on a new power conversion cycle by the PNNL. It looked like this was a new project starting with $1.2m funding recently been awarded as one of 21 DOE Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy grants through the Geothermal Technologies Program. Unfortunately, there was not a lot info in the press release other than a pretty picture of a molecular structure of a "Metal-Organic Heat Carrier" (MOHC). It is said that a higher cycle conversion efficiency will be achieved by "taking advantage of the rapid expansion and contraction capabilities of a new liquid developed by PNNL researchers called biphasic fluid. When exposed to heat brought to the surface from water circulating in moderately hot, underground rock, the thermal-cycling of the biphasic fluid will power a turbine to generate electricity." Hopefully, we wil be able to hear more about this in the future. It sounds interesting.
Reuters: Four geothermal firms said on Wednesday they plan to combine forces to form a single, larger company that will be able to raise funds more easily to develop "green" power projects. The are the Canadian-based Polaris Geothermal Inc (GEO.TO), Western GeoPower Corp (WGP.V) and GTO Resources Inc (GTRh.V), and Ram Power, a private U.S.-based geothermal power developer. The companies said they plan to combine operations and try to raise C$100 million ($90 million). Shareholders of Polaris, which has geothermal projects in Latin America, will end up holding the lion's share of the new company, with a 54.1 percent stake. Western, active in California, will own 29.2 percent, Ram 15.4 percent and GTO 1.3 percent. This follows the successful IPO by Magma last month and is an indication of interest in geothermal energy globally.
In Australia, Torrens Energy reported yesterday on the results of the Prachilna seismic survey completed over 40 kilometers to +5000m depth. The company announced that the results of the sismic survey confirm heat producing rocks at 3000-4500 m under insulating sediments. Temperatures above 200 oC are expected at these depths based on the results of computer modelling.
The Associated Press(AP) reports that the AltaRock EGS project near San Francisco is put on hold until more study is done on the earth quake risk. The AltaRock VP-Operations Jim Turner siad that he did not expect this to delay the fracturing work scheduled to take place in the next couple of months.
Dr Mark Elliot of Hot Rock reporths that the company raised $2.5m to explore for a geothermal resource near Koroit in South-West Victoria (ABC News). The company wants to spend $20m to build a geothermal power plant at that site.
Companies continue making announcements on their geothermal resource estimates, possibly in connection to the Drilling Fund Round 2 closing next month. Kuth Energy estimates an inferred geothermal resource of 260 EJ for its Charlton-Lemont geothermal play in Tasmania, the first of its kind in the state (Business Spectator).
Geothermal Resources reported an inferred resource estimate of 84 EJ at its 10 geothermal exploration licences in the Frome Basin, SA, with an electricity generating potential of 460000 GWh. This is reportedly a HFR project with the heat coming from radiogenic granites a la the Geodynamics projects in Cooper Basin. The electricity generating potential estimate is based on rock temperatures of 207 oC at a depth of 5 km and an ORC binary power plant with a cut-off point at 135 oC. The company recently raised $1m in a share offering to support the Frome drilling project. Frome
This is not a site for job advertisements. Nevertheless, I will mention an ad I noted this morning. Beginning of advertisement: Skye Recruitment is looking for an unmentioned company a "Geothermal Engineer" to be based in Queensland but to work on a variety of projects in different locations. The salary range is $120-$140k. A degree in "Renewable Energy Engineering" is required. This could have been phrased in a better way, because I do not know of any Australian university offering a formal degree in "Renewable Energy Engineering". Mechanical, chemical, electrical, civil engineering students of the UQ, renewable energy sector continues to hire even in the current downturn. End of the advertisement.
Ormat announced yesterday it will announce its second quarter 2009 earnings results in a press release that will be issued on Wednesday, August 5, 2009 after the market close. It is interesting that the announcement caused the Ormat stocks to jump from 36 to 38 cents in 2 hours.
A German newspaper article reported over the weekend on hazards associated with drilling geothermal wells in cities. Apparently, residents of Kamen, Dortmund were evacuated last week after the ground collapsed around a geothermal heat pump. The newspaper must not have any other information on the Kamen incident so the rest of the article is dedicated to ground swelling in another German village, Staufen. The swelling in Staufen started in 2007 after they started drilling to provide geothermal heat for air conditioning the town hall. The newspaper reports that, during digging the Staufen wells, water came into contact with anhydrite: a mineral, which – when exposed to water – expands and turns into gypsum. That has been causing the earth to swell, pushing the buildings up with it, and causing the cracks. It is said that the authorities are now drilling to find out if the swelling process can be stopped.
Beach Petroleum reports that the Paralana-2 drilling goes ahead of schedule. They are now down to 480 m and the progress in the week to 6 am 8 July has been 291 m.
An article in the New York Times reporting on Icelandic concerns about overuse of geothermal energy. As we all know, iceland has been attracting aluminium refining industry and a Nordural/Century Aluminium smelter is currently being constructed in southwest Iceland. The NYT article quotes Arni Finnsson, the head of Iceland’s Nature Conservation Association saying that the plant would be such an energy hog that it would “virtually wipe out all geothermal electricity in southwest Iceland.” Iceland already has three aluminium plants and is among the top 10 aluminium producers of the world. The environment minister Svandís Svavarsdóttir shares the concerns: " Iceland has abundant geothermal power,” she said in a recent e-mail exchange with Green Inc., “but we need to better assess this resource, and how to use it wisely.” It is not question of the resource being depleted of course but more a question of how quickly it replenishes itself and what is the sustainable extraction rate. It looks like these are valid concerns and can be addressed rigorously.
Recharge reports that the German geothermal drilling firm Daldrup & Söhne has through its subsidiary D&S Geothermie acquired a controlling stake (51%) in the European arm of Iceland-based Geysir Green Energy. Geysir Green Energy is one of the largest European geothermal companies with development claims on 13 sites in Germany rhgrough its subsidiaries Exorka and Enex. Its investment in geothermal energy since 2007 has been $650m. Geysir Green Energy chief executive Ásgeir Margeirsson says: “We regard geothermal energy as the last area among the renewables – after water, wind, sun and biomass – where further development and expansion is possible on a large scale.”
Interesting interview from Sydney Morning Herald with Bertus De Graaf on recent Panax announcements on its measured resources (see Wednesday below): De Graaf says that the only other Australian company with "measured" (rather than indicated or inferred) resources is Geodynamics. He should be proud because he was associated with one and now is leading the other.
It must be a week of company announcements. Panax Geothermal announced yesterday that an independent assessment by HDRPL confirms a Measured Geothermal Resource of 11 EJ at its Tirrawarra project in GEL281. This takes the Panax total Measured Geothermal Resource base to 22 EJ. I prefer to use EJ or exajoules rather than the petajoules (PJ) these things are usually reported. i EJ is of course 1000 PJ. I capitalise "Measured" as the company did in its announcement. According to the Australian geothermal reporting code, the resource base of a company can be reported in three different categories: inferred, indicated and measured. The increasing geological knowledge and confidence takes a resource from "inferred" to "indicated" and then finally to "measured".
Phillippine City Sorsogon approved a US$207m expansion to the Bacon-Monito geothermal project. The expansion involves drilling nine 10-MW wells expanding the installed capacity by 90 MW (US$2.3m per MWe). The Bacon-Monitor project is owned by the Energy Development Corporation (EDC).
The Austrade offices in Canberra issued a press release yesterday on market opportunities in Turkey for renewable energy suppliers. The Turkish Ministry of Energy apparently announced recently that around $120 billion will be invested by 2020 in the renewable energy sector in Turkey. In geothermal energy area, "Turkey has one-eighth of the world's geothermal potential and is ranked seventh in the world. The cost of electricity generated from geothermal reserves ranges from €0.03 to €0.10c/kWh, the bottom end of which is competitive with conventional systems." In 2008 licenses were granted for six sites for electricity generation. There are 59 more leases to be granted in two stages but they are thought to be suitable for direct-use heating projects. I have some knowledge about the Turkish geothermal scene and a little bit of knowledge may be dangerous but what I know leads to me to think that this is only scratching the surface. According to various estimates the convertible geothermal energy potential in Turkey is above 1000 EJ but at 5000-m depths.
Southern Gold announced yesterday that it received 18 new South Australian Geothermal Exploration Licences (GELs). Prior to that, the company holdings were limited to four non-contiguous granted GELs west of lake Torrens, with an inferred resource of 260 EJ established in one of them. With the new 18 licences, Southern Gold now has 22 granted GELs covering 10000 km2 in one contiguous block west of Lake Torrens. The announcement includes an underground temperature map prepared by Graham Beardsmore of HDRPL, which shows a relatively flat 150 oC isotherm at a depth of around 3000 m.
I figured out what project to offer to my MECH3100 - Mechanical Systems Design class next semester. It will be a natural draft dry coling tower for a geothermal plant. It is going to be a group-based projects with 5 individually-assessable tasks for each student in the group of five. The tasks are:
The important news item today is the release of the July 2009 issue of the HDRPL Geothermal Newsletter Issue. We are almost into the third year of this newsletter which has become a part of the Australian geothermal landscape. Graham Beardsmore's take on geothermal happenings of the preceding month, I have found always interesting to read. You can find the current and past issues on the web site for the Hot Dry Rocks Pty Ltd. The Newsletter is free and definitely worth reading. This month's issue has a geothermal stock watch contributed by Activated Logic.
Green Rock Energy announced yesterday that Green Rock Energy and UWA will work together to provide air conditioning to UWA Crawley Campus buildings by using absorption chillers driven by heat coming from geothermal wells. Green Rock Energy will drill two wells (one production one injection) to a depth of approximately 3000 metres to provide geothermal fluid at 100 oC, which will power an absorption chiller with 5-MW cooling capoacity. The project will replace about 1.5 MW of electricity currently the UWA gets from the grid. Green Rock shares soared by over 60% by Thursday afternoon.
We all know that the plant output is reduced dramatically during hot days in geothermal plants using air cooling. In an article soon to appear in Energy Policy, Sohel at al predict the performance of the Rotokawa plant to drop from 6 MW during winter months down to 4 MW on a hot summer day in January. As a remedial action, they propose spraying water into the air to cool it on hot days before it enters the air-cooled condenser. This is to be done in fiberglass mini cooling towers before each condenser array. The spraying is done inside the cooling tower to prevent corrosion on the condenser tubes. According to their analysis this would provide summer peak generation capacity at a cost of USD $3000/kW. Apparently, this unit cost is at the upper end of the usual USD $2000-3000 per kW needed to build a new geothermal plant.
Kenyan President yesterday announced that the country will generate new capacity for 2000 MWe in the next three years: 490 MW in six geothermal projects; 810 MW in wind and 600 MW a number of power cogeneration projects, with additional capacity to come from solar, biogas, etc.
An alternative energy energy blog reported personal communications with Geodynamics engineers on concerns raised by some people about emissions from leaked geothermal fluids. Since this issue was also raised by some of the academics (who should know better), I quote from the blog: "(Geodynamics) monitored for Radon including personnel dosimeters on workers during the blow out.Levels were far below that required for health standards of workers. Previously radon was monitored down-wind of steam flow to atmosphere; there was no significant difference between levels while the steam flowed and when steam was not flowing. There was a correlation of radon with respect to wind speed, but this was natural radon normally present in the air. The fluid has also been analysed for uranium returning levels below detection limit (<0.00036 parts per million). During normal operation the fluid is returned to the reservoir so no deep materials are released into the atmosphere. IMO It is time that the knockers did some real analysis of the facts and to stop their imaginations running away with tales based on unfounded ideas."
WCP Resources, an mineral exploration company now owns 16% of Panax Geothermal. Panax of course had originally came out of WCP.
The deep drillers in Iceland reportedly hit magma at a depth of 2100 meters. The circulation of water keeps the drill bit cool enough at the moment but drilling may have to stop unless the magma intrusion is narrow.
Down under here, Petratherm in Paralana started drilling yesterday using the $40m drill rig (2000HP LeTourneau Lightning Rig #828) that arrived on-site last month on contract from Weatherford International in Dubai. The Paralana hole is targeting a 4-km depth and temperatures of 200 oC. The well will be drilled in four stages with casings as 18 5/8" for the first 300 m; 13 3/8" for down to 1250 m; 9 5/8" to 2500 m; and 7" all the way down to 4000m. The joint venture partner Beach Petroleum is responsible for drilling and the well stimulation.
RMIT and Greenearth Energy were successful earlier this month in an ARC Linkage application to produce electricity and fresh water from a geothermal resource. The aim is to supply power and drinking water to small and isolated Australian communities. The RMIT team is led by Professor Ali Akbarzadeh. Greenearth MD Mark Miller is hoping to apply the results on Greenearth Energy's "geothermal hot sedimentary aquifer discoveries in Victoria" with small-scale geothermal power and desalination units delivering up to 100 kW of electricity and 75000 liters/day of fresh water. ARC funding for the Linkage project is $320k over four years (2009-2012).
Unocal is selling Imperial Valley Geothermal Assets to Magma Power (of Canada). Wasn't there a Magma Energy way back in California before Unocal bought Geysers and other fields? I do not think there is any connection between Magma Power and the old Magma Energy other than the name.
An ABNNewswire item refers to the Australian geothermal Energy rush with six companies reporting massive energy reserves. Bahay Ozcakmak of Activated Logic e-mailed me to note that this table is actually an extract from a report published by Activated Logic on the 4th of June, available here with other news articles with the media releases from Activated Logic available at:
http://www.activatedlogic.com.au/in-the-media-press-releases.html . I updated the original table by using the current info he supplied in his e-mail and here it is:
| Project | Resource, EJ | Category | ||
| GDY | Geodynamics | Innamincka & Hunter Valley | 245 | various |
| GER | Greenearth Energy | Geelong & Gippsland | 264 | inferred |
| GRK | Green Rock Energy | Olympic Dam Region | 120 | inferred |
| PAX | Panax Geothermal | Linestone Coast | 332 | various |
| PTR | Petratherm | Paralana | 230 | inferred |
| TEY | Torrens Energy | Parachilna | 780 | inferred |
| SAU | Southern Gold Ltd | Roxby Geothermal Project | 260 | inferred |
| HRL | Hot Rock Ltd | Penola | undisclosed |
The "Category" colum refers to the level of confidence in the reported number. "Inferred" resources indicate resources where the information and confidence are relatively low. According to the Australian geothermal reporting code, the increasing geological knowledge and confidence takes a resource from "inferred" to "indicated" and then finally to "measured".
A Courier Mail article yesterday reports that the uncertainty on the future of the ZeroGen project continues. Earlier this month, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Corporation had announced that they could design, build and commission a 530-MW coal-fired power plant for $4.3b (probably A$) by 2015 with the ability to remove and sequester about 65-90% of the CO2 emissions. This is not geothermal news of course but it is interesting as it puts a price on the CCS as $8.1 million per MWe. The Queensland Government says that it will not decide on its commitment to the future of the project until the present pre-feasibility project completes later this year.
Another piece of news I saw on the paper today reminded me of the Katrix P/L. This company received a REDI grant for $811,252 in December 2005 "to develop a new high-efficiency fluid expander to enable small-scale residential and commercial solar thermal power and heat systems... By 2007-08, 50% of the company’s sales, worth $20M, are forecast to be export sales, primarily to the United States." I think I need to check what happened to Katrix and what was produced at the end of the REDI grant.
Speaking of REDI grants, I am hoping that there has been good progress on the Round #3 grant given to Proactive Energy Developments limited and the University of Newcastle to build a regenerator gor supercritical cycles. The regenerator is a crucial item in realising a high efficiency in the supercritical CO2 cycle we are investigating. This was a $1.2m REDI grant awarded in December 2006.