Two firsts in Stillwater: A visit by a head-of-state and a one-of-a-kind power plant

Article by Ed Pearce in KOLO8 news now.

Italian company creates a unique geothermal plant augmented by solar panels to increase the output of the electric turbines. Among the many geothermal facilities in Nevada, this plant is unique. It is a triple hybrid plant that combines geothermal, photovoltaic and thermal power generation. The output of the plant at the moment powers 11,000 homes. However, this can be expanded as can almost all geothermal electrical facilities. A Stanford University article concludes that this integration will increase daytime peak generation significantly.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this project is the idea that a geothermal plant is a heat conversion machine. Which means its capacity can be expanded through additional geothermal wells or increased solar arrays.

Developing countries outpace developed world in renewable energy investment

Article in Think Geoenergy translated from El Pais.

"In a recent report published by the United Nations Program for the Environment (UNEP) it is reported that “for the first time in 2015, investments in renewable energy were higher in the developing country than in developed countries”, according to Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP."

Presentation of the UNEP report towards a green economy, that highlights that renewable energy is now being seen as a short cut towards solving energy problems. Contray to what has been said these energies are job creators and strengthen countries economies.

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David Suzuki: Tapping Earth's abundant geothermal energy

David Suzuki's article in the Georgia Straight highlights the enormous potential of geothermal energy especially in BC where hydro dams are twice as expensive to build.

Despite the many benefits of geothermal, Canada is the only “Pacific Ring of Fire” country that doesn’t use it for commercial-scale energy. According to the Desmog Blog: “New Zealand, Indonesia, the Philippines, the United States, and Mexico all have commercial geothermal plants.” More accurately 70 countries around the world use geothermal, and the technology has been used for over 100 years.

What the article does not mention is the technology to extract Lithium and other valuable minerals from the water before it is reinjected has been developed in a number of location. This could mean safe environmentally friendly extraction of minerals, without having to mine for the minerals.

The article also does not expand on how local economies flourish using the hot water by-product from these power plants. In some cases, the hot water is used to heat city apartments, provide hot water for city showers keep sidewalks free of snow, grow bananas in cold climates, heat greenhouses, facilitate local brewing operations, etc.

India Aims to Become 100 Percent Electric Vehicle Nation by 2030: Power Minister

Story from Press Trust India March 26, 2016

The government is working on a scheme to provide electric cars on zero down payment for which people can pay out of their savings on expensive fossil fuels, with the aim of becoming 100 percent electric vehicle nation by 2030.

"India can become the first country of its size which will run 100 per cent of electric vehicles. We are trying to make this programme self financing. We don't need one rupee support from the government. We don't need one rupee investment from the people of India," Power Minister Piyush Goyal said at an event organised by CII Young India.

Mexico Fifth Largest Geothermal Producer in the World

Could Mexico become the a geothermal giant? Article in Bloomberg BNA with audiovisual show by Emily Pickrell. Mexico is looking at opening up their geothermal fields to private investment and partnerships with the state-owned energy companies. They are hoping that geothermal, in the end, will make up 70 percent of Mexicos renewable energy.

Valemount Looks Toward Geothermal to Revitalize their Community

Article from the Rocky Mountain Goat News
McBride and Robson Valley

http://www.therockymountaingoat.com/2016/03/geothermal-gains-momentum-in-community/

“We were down there again today and we’re hitting temperatures in excess of 50 degrees Celsius,” says David Craig, asking if Council could find funding to start a drill program, or anything to get this off the ground. “It would be a great asset to our community.”

“I think it’s wonderful that Council is considering this geothermal thing,” says Elke Germain. “We want our children to come home, we want jobs, we want them back in our community, and that is one way to do it.”

Why Natural Gas is not a Transitional Form of Fossil Fuel

The points made in the video point out the methane leaks from natural gas fracking are 80% worse than CO2 from burning gas. Methane leaks from all wells. Furthermore, over 30 years 50% of all wells leak into ground water. This says nothing of the health issues to people who live near the wells.

India Looks to Battery Storage to Supplement Its Solar Boom

Article in Green Tech Media by Mike Stone March 14, 2016

The state-run Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) is seeking bids for a 750-megawatt solar park at Ananthapuramu in Andhra Pradesh. In order to supplement the massive series of projects, SECI is looking to procure 100 megawatts of storage capacity.

Heat Waves, Droughts and Heavy Rain Have Clear Links to Climate Change, Says National Academies

• Article in the Scientific American 

• By Gayathri Vaidyanathan, ClimateWire on March 14, 2016

• Scientists can now say with confidence whether heat waves, such as the one that struck Russia in 2010 and caused 55,000 deaths, are linked to climate change. But when it comes to storms like Typhoon Haiyan, which battered the Philippines last year, their methods hit a brick wall of uncertainty.

Massive wind energy project planned for southern Wyoming

KGWN Cheyenne News

The southern Wyoming project has the capacity to open up to 1,000 jobs at peak construction and generate up to 3,000 megawatts of clean, renewable power -- enough to run nearly one million homes.

In addition to the 1,000 construction jobs, the CCSM project is expected to create more than a hundred permanent positions in operations and maintenance and generate more than $300 million in property-tax revenue during construction and over its first 20 years of operation. The Power Company of Wyoming LLC, which will develop and operate the project, estimates the complex will contribute $232 million from sales taxes and $170 million from a state wind-electricity tax.

Drilling starts on new geothermal power project in Gross-Gerau, Germany

Translated article from GeoEnergy

It is expected that the geothermal power plant will supply 7,200 households with electricity, and about 400 households with heat. The plant could annually produce around 25 GW hours of green electricity and could save about 750,000 litres of oil for heating per year.

Pakistan Geothermal Power Resources can Generate 100,000 MW of Power

Article in the International "The News"

Pakistan is found to have been blessed with the potential of huge geothermal energy recourses that could generate 100,000MW electricity at the cost of 5-10 cents per unit depending upon different locations of the power plants, reveals the research of Pakistani scientist Javed Ahmad that has been published in the US. 

The US is offering 7-8 billion to exploit the resource.

Global Geothermal Power Projected to Double

Article in Power 

The global geothermal power market continued to grow forward according to the 2016 US and Global Geothermal Power Production Report released today by the US Geothermal Energy Association. With an operating capacity of 13.3 GW in 24 countries, the market had new capacity under development in 82 countries. This new capacity would add 12.5 GW of new power capacity, approximately doubling current output.

Some of the rising stars of the geothermal industry include Kenya, which generates half of its electricity from geothermal power, and Indonesia, whose island archipelago harbors the world’s largest geothermal potential. Still, only 6-7% of the world’s estimated geothermal potential is being harnessed.

The Arctic is thawing much faster than expected, scientists warn

Washington Post Article By Chris Mooney
Discusses a major new paper title Pan-Arctic ice-wedge degradation in warming
permafrost and its influence on tundra hydrology. This research from Russia and the US discovers the tundra is thawing at a rate faster than we think.

Tesla's Gigafactory Powered by 100% Renewable Energy

Story in Hydrogen Fuel News
The Gigafactory is to be equipped with an array of solar panels that will cover its entire rooftop. Wind turbines will also be erected on a slope nearby, which will also provide the facility with renewable energy. The factory will, essentially, run entirely on clean energy, making it environmentally friendly. Tesla intended for the factory to produce no emissions and had initially planned on using only solar energy to power the facility, but opted to use other forms of clean power as well.

Germany to Test Whether "EVs" Can Help Stabilize the Grid

Article in RE new economy by Craig Morris

The potential business plan is that every car owner, regardless of their storage capacity, would receive a monthly “swarm bonus” for this service. It’s sounds easy, but in practice it’s complicated. Car owners have to be plugged into the grid when they take part. “The service provider has to offer a reliable volume from a pool of thousands of vehicles based on forecasts and statistics,” explains Gero Lücking, head of Lichtblick.

Coal-fired Plant Permits in the UK Drops Reporting Requirements!

Story from in the Guardian.

Environmental lawyers’ group says unlawful Environment Agency permits have dropped important requirements.

Scores of Britain’s coal-fired power stations, steel plants and iron works will no longer have to maintain a plan to show they will meet air pollution standards under the latest permits issued by the government.

ClientEarth, a group of environment lawyers who last year successfully sued the government over air pollution, said the permits deleted a condition that required the plants’ operators to publish air quality management plans and to assess how much they might damage protected nature areas.

Africa and the Policy Push for Mini-Grid Growth

Nigeria – Africa’s largest economy is one of the emerging economies with an immense and untapped potential for MG-OG. The adoption of regulatory frameworks that will incentivize mini-grid investment has the potential to open a whole new alley of opportunities within the economy, but the policies have to be accommodating: broad incentives for mini-grid and off grid investments.

Like Hot Weather? Go to North Iceland

Yesterday, an Icelandic heat record for the first 26 days of March was broken in the northernmost town of Iceland, Siglufjörður, when the temperature reached almost 18°C (65°F).

Canada's Alterra Update on Geothermal Plants

The most exciting note in this report is the increased use of new binary technology in old style flash plants to increase the amount of electrical output. Binary systems simply make use of the waste heat that can not be used to produce electricity in flash systems.

Paul Rapp - Head of Geothermal and Wind Operations: "So both Svartsengi and Reykjanes plants performed well in 2015 and the overall production was 95.5% of plan for the year. Year to date we're 101% of plan. Highlights at the Svartsengi plant for the year included drilling of two new wells, Svartsengi 25 and 26, both of which are showing very promising indications for production. The holes were just recently completed and down haul logging and flow testing is underway in these holes and we expect at least one of these holes will be connected to the plant in 2016. There's ongoing construction at Svartsengi of a new discharge facility which will dispose of brine from the plant and this will allow for extraction of more geothermal fluid from the field and potential increase in power production from the plant as well."

"Over at Reykjanes we completed just in the last few weeks the reinjection pipeline that's been under construction for a while there and this connects the plant to the previously completed RN 33 and RN 34 well area. Reinjection has commenced into those wells and will be ramped up over the next short while to provide pressure support to the Reykjanes field."

John Carson - CEO: ".....we’ll also look at expansion on to our geothermal project we’ve long been discussing our Reykjanes plant and potential expansions there. There is one potential expansion the first portion of it which doesn’t involve drilling any new wells it's basically just adding on a binary power unit to the existing facility there and we’re currently working that one as well."

Germany's Trebur Geothermal Project

The planned depth is 3,500 to 4,000 meters to an expected water temperature of 160 degrees Celsius. The power plant will deliver 3 MWe of electrical power and 6 MWth of thermal power (feeding into district heating network for the supply of industrial enterprises and residential areas). It is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by 27 000 tonnes / year. The investment amounts to 40 to 50 million euros.

http://www.echo-online.de/lokales/kreis-gross-gerau/trebur/bohrungen-fuer-das-erste-geothermiekraftwerk-hessens-in-trebur-beginnen_16739411.htm#1

Geothermal Could Clean up China's Coal Smog

Reported last week from China, geothermal energy could be about to play a much larger role in heating the heavily-polluted cities clustered in northern China that have traditionally been major consumers of coal and massive victims of winter smog, according to an industry insider. “We need to fully utilize geothermal energy, a renewable clean energy buried underground, to replace coal as winter heating fuel,” said Huang Gang, head of Huabei Oilfield Co, which is headquartered in Cangzhou, Hebei province. “It could alleviate the severe smog in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.”


Smog over Beijing, China (source: flickr/ gmetrail, creative commons)

South Korean firms $400m investment into Indonesia Geothermal

A consortium of firms is looking at investments of up to $400m into the development of geothermal projects of up to 190 MW in East Java and East Nusa Teggara, Indonesia.

Mount Batok, East Java, Indonesia (source: flickr/ taveshala, creative commons)

Iceland's Use of Clean Electricity Energy

Iceland by moving to geothermal electric production plants has moved to clean energy and stopped any further hydro electrical production and stopped any further damage to their eco system. The movement away from hydro has also prevented any further methane emissions that are associated with hydro dams.
They predict that with increased geothermal development they will be able to transition their transportation systems to electrical systems and increase the number of electric cars on the road.

Australian company unveils major 250 MW geothermal project in California's Salton Sea

Article on Geothermal in the Salton Sea Basin By Herman K. Trash

A California public utility recently approved a 1,900-acre lease for an Australian company to develop a 250 MW geothermal plant in one of the state’s most geothermal-rich areas, the Salton Sea, the Desert Sun reports, giving hope to environmental advocates who see development as a key source for funding for restoration.

Operational geothermal plants are partnered with companies who are extracting valuable minerals from the geothermal liquid before it is re injected into the geothermal reservoir. The benefits are extensive as indicated in Stanford Research.

Conclusion of the Stanford Research
Mineral Extraction can provide a number of economic benefits to geothermal energy extraction whether it is for power or direct use applications. The ability to remove silica can allow for added energy extraction, reduce operation and maintenance cost and open the way for the recovery of such metals as zinc, lithium, manganese, cesium, rubidium and even precious metals such as gold, silver and platinum. The risk, however, is that the tremendous amounts of some metals such as lithium in geothermal brines, for example at the Salton Sea, could well exceed worldwide demand and result in driving the market price down to uneconomical levels.
The ability to use geothermal brine for enhanced evaporative cooling of binary plants could well provide an additional incentive to find viable methods for silica removal. 

What You Need to Know About the Irreparable Harm of Climate Change

Huffington Post article on Dr. Jim Hans, Director of the Climate Science. Awareness and Solutions program at Columbia University Earth Institute, research results.

• When I sheets melt it is not a linear acceleration, the climate change can double or triple.
• Accelerated global warming will create superstorms and there is evidence of this found in research on previous climate warming periods.
• We may or may not be at a point of no return.
• The solution is obvious a transition away from fossil fuels.

Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms

Current record-shattering temperatures are shocking even to climate scientists

“Stunning,” “wow,” “shocker,” “bombshell,” “astronomical,” “insane,”“unprecedented”– these are some of the words climate scientists have used to describe the record-shattering global surface temperatures in February 2016.