Via Yahoo News:

RENO, Nev., Aug. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Ormat Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: ORA – News) today announced that it has won a bid for approximately 68,900 acres of geothermal leases in Nevada, that were auctioned by the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) for the total amount of approximately $8.2 million.

Dita Bronicki, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ormat Technologies, said: “This auction is an implementation of the new BLM rule which includes a requirement that geothermal resources be offered through a competitive lease process. Our successful bid secures lease agreements for seven new sites in Nevada, which will support our growth plans in the years to come, however, there is no assurance that all of the leases will be found suitable for commercial projects.”

The only comment we’ll make here is that Ormat’s holdings may be compressed into 7 “leases” logically based on the way the land parcels are arrayed, but they successfully won 22 individual parcels. We know, we watched them bid and win. The total $ spent does match our record of the event so it must simply be a point of view that there were 7 logical areas that the parcels grouped into.

From the BLM website:

August 14, 2007 – Contact: Heather Feeney, 202-452-5031

BLM Geothermal Lease Auction Signals New Trend in Renewable Energy
Leasing Implements Clean Energy Goals in Energy Policy Act

RENO, NEVADA – A competitive auction of lease parcels for geothermal energy resources on Federal public lands in Nevada and California held in Reno today brought nearly $20 million in bids, including the highest per-acre bid in history. The results of the Bureau of Land Management’s second competitive sale of geothermal leases signal significant expansion of this renewable, low-emission source of energy.

“We were extremely pleased with the unexpectedly high interest in our first competitive sale, in June, for lands in Idaho and Utah,” said BLM Deputy Director Henri Bisson, “and the success of today’s sale is a harbinger of continued rising interest in developing the Nation’s considerable geothermal energy resources, most of which are found on public lands.”

A total of 49 parcels – 43 in Nevada and six in California – were offered for lease in today’s combined sale. More than 2,700 acres in the famed Geysers geothermal field of California brought bids totaling over $8 million, including the historically high bid of $14,000 per acre for a 470-acre parcel. This bid by Binkley Geo Resources, LLC, of Santa Monica, California, surpassed the previous record of $11,000 per acre, in a 1982 sealed-bid sale of a 440-acre Geysers parcel. The second-highest bid for a California parcel offered in today’s sale was $420 per acre.

The 122,849 acres in Nevada sold for nearly $11.7 million. The highest bid for lands in Nevada from Ormat Nevada of Reno, Nevada, was $510 per acre on a 5,120-acre parcel, for a total bonus bid of $2.6 million. Other Nevada parcels brought per-acre bids of $300 or more. In the earlier Idaho-Utah sale, leases on eight parcels were sold for a total of $9.4 million.

Fifty percent of all revenues from the lease sale – including bonus bids, rentals and royalty monies collected on the leases – are distributed to the State in which the leased lands are located; 25 percent is distributed to the respective county. The remaining 25 percent is distributed to the BLM.

Under previous regulations, geothermal parcels were leased using a sealed bidding process. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 directed changes in the way Federal geothermal resources are leased, including a requirement that leasing be competitive. Today’s sale offered on a competitive basis parcels that had been requested for leasing under previous regulations. Future geothermal lease sales will offer parcels formally nominated by the public using process outlined in new regulations the BLM published in May 2007 and the new nomination form, available now. (Select this link for more information).

“The new regulations and nomination process implement the direction Congress provided in the Energy Policy Act,” Bisson said, “but when you add in the results of the two transitional competitive sales, you begin to see this as a larger, pivotal moment for renewable energy development on public lands. The new regulations and leasing process mean that the BLM is well-prepared to facilitate the development of clean, renewable energy resources. It’s exciting to see our efforts beginning to take off already.”

Since the Energy Policy Act became law in August 2005, the BLM has implemented a number of the Act’s provisions that relate to renewable energy, including program-level impact analysis and policy guidance for wind energy development, policy guidance on solar energy development, and steps to reach the Act’s goal of approving by 2015 new renewable energy projects on public lands with the capacity to generate at least 10,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity.

The BLM is also the co-lead agency with the Department of Energy of an effort to designate energy transport corridors on Federal lands in 11 Western States. As directed by the Energy Policy Act, these corridors would facilitate delivery of electric power from places where it is generated to where it is needed in homes and businesses.

Geothermal energy production uses steam and hot water heated naturally beneath the surface of the earth to generate electricity without little or no need to burn fuel. Geothermal energy currently accounts for 8.5 percent of renewable energy generation and 0.3 percent of the total U.S. electricity supply. Though it generates a small portion of the nation’s electricity, the U.S. continues to be the world leader in generating electricity using geothermal energy. In 2005, geothermal energy generated approximately 16,010 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity.

Almost half of the nation’s geothermal energy production occurs on public lands, and about 90 percent of U.S. geothermal resources are found on Federal lands. The BLM is currently preparing a programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) that will further guide future geothermal leasing on Federal lands in the West and identify the steps necessary to facilitate the processing of the approximately 100 pending geothermal lease applications.

The BLM administers 29 geothermal power plants, which use Federal resources in California, Nevada and Utah. They have a total capacity of 1250 MW and supply the needs of 1.2 million homes.

Read the article at BLM.

Updated August 15th with corrections.

Today, forty-nine land parcels with geothermal leases were auctioned at the Reno, Nevada Bureau of Land Management office. We estimate some 50 people were in attendance at the auction today representing companies including Ormat, Calpine, US Renewables note: replaced with Binkley Geo Resources (though Tom King from US Renewables was the bidder), and Raser Technologies.

Note regarding accuracy: we recorded winning bidder numbers on each parcel and are fairly certain about the identity of the named bidders in this entry, but, this information could be wrong. When the BLM posts the results on their web site, we will revisit our parcel number to bidder number analysis and correct anything that we’ve gotten wrong.

The auction started off with excitement as the first parcel of 470 acres at the Geysers generated spirited bidding between Calpine and US Renewables note: replaced with Binkley Geo Resources, the winning bid was $14,000/acre and a walk-off price of $6.5M. That was the high price per acre paid and the highest price paid for any individual parcel. In total, the 6 California parcels totaling 2,711 acres located in the Geysers area, sold for $8M and went to 4 different bidders, Calpine won two parcels, US Renewables note: replaced with Binkley Geo Resources two parcels, and two unidentified bidders secured the remaining parcels.

The forty-three Nevada parcels had a much greater distribution of prices and bidders, with the low price paid at $3 and the high price paid at $510 per acre. In total, 122,850 acres were sold for $11.6M and were distributed among 10 bidders. The story in Nevada was Ormat who we believe successfully won the bid on 22 of the 43 parcels accounting for nearly $8.2M of the proceeds.

The remaining twenty-one parcels were distributed among nine different bidders. Six individual bidders were able to secure single properties (disclosure: MeV was one of those companies) accounting for $2.3M. Three bidders won the remaining 15 parcels. We believe we can only identify one of those bidders, Raser Technologies, who won 4 parcels accounting for just over $0.6M. One other unidentified bidder secured 8 parcels accounting for $0.4M and the other secured 2 parcels accounting for $0.1M.

If nothing else, this shows the renewable energy space is hot (please forgive the pun.) It was a highly educational day and a good day for Uncle Sam who put this land to work for the people while raising some cash. We’ll look forward to attending the next BLM auction. And, the auctioneer, Lynn England, was great as were the very helpful (if not a little stressed out) BLM employees.

Today, at the BLM land auction, Montara Energy Ventures acquired development rights to a property in Nevada. Following a series of activities including surveying and testing, we will announce our development plans for this property. There is a long way to go yet, but think “renewable energy park” where multiple resources are harvested concurrently.

With the start of commercial operations of the Darajat III plant in Indonesia, Chevron now operates some 1,273 MW of geothermal plants globally. Investment in Indonesia has largely dried up due to risks in the political and legal climates. This can only be viewed as a step forward though for Indonesia, for Chevron, and for geothermal overall.

Chevron’s press release is available here.