US Geothermal, developer and operator of the Raft River project in Idaho, announced their intent to acquire the assets of Empire Geothermal consisting of a 4.8MW (nameplate) binary plant and over 28,000 acres of land for $16.6M. The transaction details are complex, the press release goes into detail about how the deal is structured and the timing of the transaction.

The plant has been in operation since 1987 and consists of 4, 1.2MW binary units and a cooling tower arrangement. The average output of the plant has been in the 3MW range for sometime with the plant producing approximately 35,000 MWh gross and selling ~25,000 MWh in 2006. The difference in the gross and net loads are accounted for in the operation of the binary plant (pumping of fluids primarily for cooling and reinjection.)

The land in question consists of the San Emidio Desert (22k acres plus the plant) and Granite Creek near Gerlach, Nevada. USG estimates they can boost the output of the Empire plant to 10MW with the new technology available since 1987 and potentially develop up to a 40 MW plant across the other prospects.

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Photo Credit: Enertia

Another electric motorcycle that has come to our attention is the Enertia, a 280lb vehicle with a range of 45 miles on a single charge. It’s estimated to cost around $0.01 per mile to operate in electric cost and if used 100% for commuting can reduce green house gas emission by an order of magnitude over an average CAFE emission vehicle.

The top speed of the bike is 50mph and the performance is decent accelerating from 0 to 30mph in 3.8 seconds. The battery storage system is an array of lithium phosphate batteries designed to resist thermal stress. The system is designed to operate for 35,000 miles of operation.

Here’s the rub, the base model is available for $11,995 starting at the end of this year and with options the price can accelerate to nearly $15,000. It’s certainly an interesting option, but with a high cost of acquisition.

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Image Credit: BrightSource Energy
Today, BrightSource Energy and PG&E signed an agreement for the utility to take delivery of and distribute 500MWe of electricity from 3 proposed solar thermal plants in California. Power delivery could begin as early as 2011 and when fully online, the project is anticipated to deliver up to 1.2GWh of power per year into the grid.

Options for 400MW more power exist in the contract and that could push generation to over 2GWh per year from the aggregated projects.

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