Iceland’s Svartsengi Power Plant produces 46MW electricity and 150MW thermal, then ejects clean water at 40C (104F) into this lagoon which is widely photographed and somewhat other worldly.

While we mostly focus on electricity generation from renewable resources with something of a focus on geothermal technologies, I thought it was time to take a look at the home market.

WFI, A US company, listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, presents a really interesting eco* (ecological and economic) opportunity: it has all the makings of a great investment and its products provide environmental benefit. In a nutshell, WFI uses geothermal heat exchange to heat or cool your home or office. WFI has two businesses, a product business consisting of the geothermal pumps (WaterFurnance) and an installation service that will install the heat exchange loops (LoopMaster.)

The DOE estimates that for each home installation of a geothermal heat pump it equates to taking two cars off the road for a year. These pumps have around 2.5 to 4 coefficient of performance, for every unit of energy that goes into the system 2.5 to 4 units of heat/cooling come out. The way these systems work is pretty simple, see the diagram below:



On the economic front, WFI earned $8.3M on sales of $91M and paid a dividend of $0.50/share, up from $6M, $72M, and $0.44/share last year. The company has been around for 25 years and is investing for expansion as green becomes the new red, white, and blue and fossil fuel prices continue to rise. WFI is trading around $22.80(C)/share currently.

This is one of those times that a company with a good product, in an expanding market, with a strong balance sheet, is poised to take off. Not only can investors benefit, but the customers, and the environment can benefit too. As always, do your own research before investing in any company, but I believe WFI presents an interesting opportunity below $21(C)/share.

Disclosure: The author holds no shares in WFI but is strongly considering an investment at the right price.

It is widely rumored that the Carlyle Group and AES have bid to buy Calpine and its $26B in assets. A key asset Calpine holds is the Geysers geothermal power plant complex in Northern California of which Calpine owns 20 of the 22 plants producing around 700MW, or 5.5 gigawatt hours of electricity, enough to power San Francisco each year.

We’ll see if this comes true, Calpine has been in bankruptcy reorganization for some time and has steadily been divesting assets oved the past 18 months.

A 1,200 meter (~3900 foot) well was completed Friday on the Reese River, Nevada project. Now comes flow testing to determine the quality and quantity of the resource. If Sierra’s calculations are correct, this project should be around 30MW (not this well, wells can produce between 1 and 15MW and the only place I’ve heard of 15MW is Iceland – 2 to 5MW is common.) We’ll see what Sierra finds and reports…

In what is becoming a common pattern, the US military is actually leading the way in the installation and use of renewable energy. The military has large chunks of space with renewable resources available coupled with enormous utility bills. This combination leads the military to the obvious conclusion that using the renewable resources will free up dollars for use elsewhere.

A long standing example of this pattern is the Coso geothermal installation on the China Lake Naval Station in southern California. Caithness Energy, LLC operates these plants (~260MW) as a joint venture with the Navy using some of the power locally and selling the rest to utilities for general use.

The most recent example comes from the selection of Integrated Solar Technologies to install a solar roof system on a base in the south Pacific by the end of this calendar year.

Solar Roof Installation