As has been widely reported, the Olympic Flame made a brief appearance in San Francisco this week. I commented earlier on this when the very lame idea of “free speech zones” was advanced by Mayor Gavin Newsome. For those of you who don’t know, the Mayor played a very public bait and switch game with the populace, both supporters and detractors of the event, suggesting that people could participate by hanging out near the waterfront and in Justin Herman Plaza for the closing ceremony. In fact, the torch disappeared and took an unpublished route to the northern end of the city under close security and near secrecy.
My knee jerk reaction to this was “sellout!” In fact, this entry was originally entitled “Gavin Newsome is a Coward.” But as I wrote the original entry I didn’t quite believe what I was writing entirely and thus decided not to write that story. I certainly do believe that people have the right to express themselves within the bounds of the law and hate to see that right obstructed. However, when looking at the events on Wednesday, people had pretty unlimited free speech to express whatever their view point might be on the subject. So, where’s the problem with what transpired?
To be fair, the Mayor spoke multiple times before the event and each time stated this is the plan, but it is subject to change even up to the last moment. It’s not like the bait and switch wasn’t advertised in advance. And, in a notoriously “leaky” city, the fact that the new route and change was kept secret is nothing short of amazing. No doubt people were disappointed that they didn’t get to see the Olympic Flame in it’s only US appearance, but they did get to express themselves and that’s the key I think.
Meanwhile, to turn to the subject of Tibet for the moment, I don’t know much about the situation there and really don’t have a position. But I do think that it would be the highest form of hypocrisy for the US to lecture any other nation on occupation and/or human rights at our present time in history; having just passed the 5 year anniversary of an illegal and immoral war, occupation, and torture campaign. That doesn’t mean that China is right on the issue, but it does mean the US isn’t qualified to criticize China on these issues – we have our own shortcomings to deal with.
A final thought on this: what was the Olympic Committee smoking when they decided to make San Francisco the one US stop for the torch? If there’s one city that would protest regardless of the hosting nation, this is it. Come on, people in the city protest rain, fog, and the tides. In fact, people protest for no reason other than it’s been a few days since the last protest. That’s part of the city’s charm. What do you expect is going to happen when a lightning rod set of issues represented by China passes through the city with national media attention? At least no one was hurt.
Attribution: Unknown
Guess it was a really hot day…very interesting advertising though from the land down under.
HT: Paul
About a year ago we wrote about Mariah Power’s Windspire vertical axis turbine intended to be packaged as an appliance. An update is in order now that the Reno, Nevada company has secured $1.25M in funding and is scheduled to produce and ship their first 50 turbines this month.
The distinguishing characteristics about this approach is that the turbine is packaged as an appliance for consumer use and has a relatively low price point, $5,000 installed. The other compelling design feature is that the turbine is vertically oriented reducing noise, vibration, and avian complications. The device is expected to produce around 1,800 kwh per year and cuts in at 11 mph wind speed.
Mariah is seeking expansion capital of more than $5M to grow their business starting with fulfilling their 1,200 customer orders for the Windspire turbine.
HT: Pete Palmer
One of the more frustrating aspects of attempting to enter the geothermal industry is that it is small, fragmented, and insular. Most of the players have been in the business for more than 30 years, have seen the boom/bust cycle, and consequently are wary of newcomers during a boom cycle. The people who make up the core of the industry are the survivors from prior cycles and they can be difficult to reach.
Instead of focusing on the people, which would be counter-productive, a tour of the companies and organizations working in and around the geothermal industry might be useful for our readers. Roughly speaking, there are developers, operators, industry groups, and service providers. We’ll focus more on the developers and operators in this entry, but will list a few industry groups and service providers. This entry is North America focused, there are clearly well developed resources in Iceland, Italy, New Zealand, the Philippines, Mexico, and Indonesia. There are emerging projects in Africa, Asia Minor, and South America. This entry will not cover those areas explicitly.
Developers are the folks out there trying to create new projects from untapped and/or underutilized resources. Often times, developers are also operators, it’s just a function of where the team happens to be in the development cycle. There are private and public companies engaged, for the most part, it’s the public companies who are visible.
Developers
- Vulcan Power Company – Proponents of the “green gigawatt plan” with 7 properties in various stages of development.
- Nevada Geothermal – Developing four projects in Nevada and Oregon including the Blue Mountain project.
- Sierra Geothermal – Has a portfolio of 17 projects including the Reese River project in Nevada.
- Raser Technologies – Recent entry into the developer category with 12,000 acres and multiple projects in-flight.
- Western GeoPower – Longtime developer with two projects in-flight, a 35MW project at The Geysers and another in Canada.
- Many, many more small, under the radar shops (including MeV, publisher of this site.)
Operators
- Chevron – The world’s largest producer of geothermal power with 1,273MW in Indonesia and the Philippines.
- Calpine – The leading US geothermal producer with 750MW in 19 plants at The Geysers.
- Ormat – The largest “pure play” geothermal company. Ormat designs and develops geothermal harvest technology and operates nearly 400MW of power plants.
- Constellation – Operates the Mammoth and Soda Lake geothermal plants in California and Nevada.
- Cal Energy – Operates the Imperial Valley plants in California.
- Caithness/ArcLight – Operates 347MW across 5 plants in California and Nevada.
- US Geothermal – Operates the Raft River project in Idaho.
- Polaris Geothermal – Operates the San Jacinto Tizate plant in Nicaragua.
- US Navy – The Geothermal Program Office works in conjunction with Caithness in the operation of the Coso plants in California and may develop other resources on military lands in the Western US.
Industry Groups
This service provider list is suggestive of the kinds of providers out there and some of the leaders, it is by no means complete. There are many, many service providers available to this nascent industry.
Service Providers
- Geothermex – A full-service geotechnical service provider well known for characterizing resources in advance of project financing.
- ThermaSource – An engineering company known for its drilling capabilities and execution at The Geysers.
- UTC Power – Subsidiary of United Technologies, producer of the first standard, modular, and scalable geothermal harvest systems.
- Stoel Rives – Law firm specializing in renewable energy deals, with specific expertise in geothermal projects.
- Jacob & Company – Canadian firm specializing in using the public markets (Toronto Venture Exchange) for project financing.
- US Renewables – Renewable energy venture funding source with geothermal projects and expertise.
- US Government – Has many agencies available to provide help and guidance (and regulation.) The Bureau of Land Manaement (BLM,) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA,) Federal Electricity Regulatory Commission (FERC,) Department of Forrestry (DoF,) and Department of Energy (DoE.)
We hope this has been an educational entry, we may do a deep dive on each company listed above over time. We certainly do comment periodically on the progress of projects as the news becomes public. If we’ve missed any developer/operator in the US (and it’s very possible we have) leave a comment and we’ll evaluate inclusion going forward.
Image Credit: Clutch Cargo Lips
Geek humor like this is the best, I saw this and nearly splutted liquid through my nose. Hats off to you
Clutch Cargo Lips, that’s great innovation and commitment to the geek theme. Now that I see it, I would like a piece of pi…
