Blog Archives
Cleantech Investment up 10x
As you can see from the chart above, since 2003 investment in Clean Technology has increased an order of magnitude since 2003. While the bloom seems to be off the biofuel flower, the rest of the segment continues to garner huge capital infusions from the private marketplace. When will the ride end? Your guess is as good as ours, but it’s clear this is a cyclical business and that the present growth rate is unlikely to be sustainable without substantial financial return in the foreseeable future. Comments are off for this post
Solar Thermal Development Pipeline
Source: Emerging Energy Research
Emerging Energy Research released a report in November, 2007 detailing the state of the concentrated solar (or solar thermal) harvest development pipeline globally. This report is available for download at $3750 per copy. As you can see from the graph above there is a great deal of activity in the sector, though it’s backend loaded with respect to when the plants are due to come online. The other interesting aspect of this is the technology, parabolic trough is dominating, but linear fresnel and receiver type configurations are factoring into development to some extent. 1 comment
Business Opportunity: CFL recycling?
Have you ever wondered what to do with those energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs when they burn out? One shouldn’t just toss them into the garbage due to the small amount of mercury (~5mg) in each bulb yet it’s not really apparent what to do with them. Presently, there are a number of pilot programs that collect and hopefully recycle the bulbs, but a sustainable and clear recycling stream has really yet to emerge.
One has to wonder if this is a business opportunity? The Wall Street Journal online has a good article discussing the pros and cons of the current state of electronics recycling including cfls (ignoring the pejorative title “The Dark Side of Green Bulbs”.)
Drilling to commence at the Geysers
Western Geothermal announced this week that drilling permits have been secured for the first two wells in its bid to revive the old PGE Unit 15 in the southwest corner of the known geothermal resource area. The company expects that they will drill 8 wells to reach production capacity for commercial operations which are expected to commence in 2010. Thermasource will be the prime contractor on drilling operations and will use the Northern California Power Association’s drill rig to perform the work.
Unlike most geothermal drilling projects, this is a pretty sure bet since there were production wells sited here in the past and the geological structure has been studied for decades. When the Western Geothermal project comes online, it will be the second project (Bottlerock being the other) to bring more production online in the Geysers region. Between Calpine and NCPA, the two active producers today, the total output of the area is around 900MW.
More Progress at Blue Mountain
Photo Credit: Nevada Geothermal
Via Yahoo News:
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA–(MARKET WIRE)–Jan 18, 2008 — Nevada Geothermal Power Inc. (NGP) (CDNX:NGP.V – News)(OTC BB:NGLPF.OB – News) is pleased to announce positive results from Well 25-14, completed to a depth of 2370 feet (722 metres), having intersected a strong production zone at 2270 feet (692 metres).
Rig-on flow testing on January 7, 2008, encountered temperatures of 378 degrees F (192 degrees C) and the capacity of this well is expected to be similar to Well 26A-14 and Well 23-14. Longer term testing is planned and results are expected in the next month.
“We are very pleased with the success of how the development drilling is proceeding at Blue Mountain Faulkner I Power Plant. We have drilled approximately 20 MW net capacity from just three wells,” stated Brian Fairbank, President & CEO.
This has to be considered excellent news for Nevada Geothermal, the Blue Mountain project is really beginning to shape up. The last major hurdle for development of the site is transmission, the site is 20 miles from an appropriate interconnect. Given the characteristics of the resource they’re developing, getting a line through should be possible. Of course there are many regulatory and legal aspects to complete that portion of the project. According to Nevada Geothermal, the transmission project is on target and drilling at the site will continue.
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