Today is exciting, a colleague and I are headed to the East Dixie Valley in Nevada to do a preliminary survey of the land parcel we won at auction earlier this month for Montara Energy Ventures. We’ll take photos, gps readings, and do some geological observation to understand this particular parcel and begin to plan our detailed exploration of the land.

The one restriction we have is to spare the sand cholla (pronounced choy-ya) or Opuntia pulchella or cactus if you prefer. We’ll drive out to the parcel this morning from Reno – having just spent another night at the Nugget….I’ll post a photo or two tomorrow of what we see.

And, since it can never be too early to start making fun of potential future presidents, here’s the Hilary nutcracker for your reading pleasure. It’s available for only $19.95 and has an actual nut cracking event when you roll your mouse over the device. I’ll be on the lookout for Obama, Giulani, and Romney chuckles too…

Read the caption at the bottom of the screen


Since this was displayed by Sky News, I have to wonder if it wasn’t as innocent as it appears to be on the surface. Kudos to whomever snapped this photo because it’s certainly funny! (BTW, it’s floating around the net, I can’t seem to find a root source to provide attribution as is so often the case with photos like this.)

Originally published at Montara Energy Ventures.

Via Sierra Geothermal:

8/17/2007 11:12:21 AM ET News Release Index

Sierra Geothermal Power Corp Secures New Geothermal Leases in Nevada

Sierra Geothermal Power Corp (SGP); TSX-V: SRA, is pleased to announce that it was the successful bidder for 18,103 acres of geothermal lease rights in the areas of Dixie Valley and Brady/Desert Peak, Nevada. These leases were acquired through the Bureau of Land Management’s competitive bidding process.

The acquired leases in Dixie Valley are located 6.4 km from the 66 Megawatt Geothermal Power Plant operated by Caithness Energy, LLC, which has been producing power at the plant since 1988. The Dixie Valley land parcels consist of 17,446 acres located within the structural trend of the Dixie Valley Geothermal Field. The Brady/Desert Peak land parcel is comprised of 657 acres of geothermal lease rights. The Brady and Desert Peak geothermal power plants, both operated by Ormat, produce 26 MW and 12.5 MW respectively.

SGP’s President and CEO, Gary Thompson, states “We are encouraged by the potential for power generation in this area and its proximity to transmission infrastructure.”

Twenty-five of the United States have adopted Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) to stimulate the development of renewable energy. The State of Nevada has adopted an RPS that requires utilities to have 20% of their electricity supplied from renewable sources by 2015. The California RPS requires 20% of electricity sold to come from renewable energy by 2010.

This set of parcels adds great potential to Sierra’s Tier III holdings. The company continues to develop Tier I projects like Reese River, Pumpernickle, Alum, and Silver Peak. For a detailed listing of Sierra’s projects, visit their corporate website.

OK, so the title is pejorative – it was intended to be. The screen capture of the PlanetSave portal is representative of what I want to talk about, there’s nothing specific about it (or the legions of other web destinations) I want to single out other than the core message of “save the planet.” If you read this blog often, you know I’m pretty concerned with renewable energy and conservation activities, but this one message: “save the planet” has got to go.

Why you ask? Because the planet can take care of itself. Mother Earth will outlive every single homo sapien. And, unless we find a way to pulverize the planet, Earth will recover from the human infestation within a couple of hundred thousand years after our demise. Ask the dinosaurs about how the planet needs saving…it doesn’t.

What we need to do is save the humans from ourselves. That’s a different message, it’s more personal and it’s more accurate. I now believe that it’s not even about saving your grandchildren or your children, it’s about saving yourself. Why would I say that? Having watched different sorts of systems degrade over my lifetime, the degradation can be loosely bucketed into what I’d like to call decline curve and sudden descent. There is a common root between the two as they both start out as decline curve (if one can detect the decline) and then some trigger is reached when sudden descent occurs.

The “save the planet” message leaves people with the notion that we’re in a decline curve (I agree) but there is little sense of urgency because the impacts will be felt long after the current people crop is gone. That may not be the case, it may be that we’re trundling along the decline curve and the triggering event for sudden descent has happened or will happen shortly and the impact will affect you, in your lifetime.

So, while I applaud the work that PlanetSave and others are doing, I just think we need to adjust the message and make it personal. Unless something impacts us directly, it’s often too abstract to catalyze action.