Rich Keller, Editor, Ag Professional  |   March 6, 2013 resize text

REYKJAVIK, Iceland—Why isn’t geothermal energy in the picture for the United States as a leading renewable energy source? It is because the United States only has one major earth plate shift point and that is the earthquake fault line that runs along the edge of California. Those plate shift points are the starting area for being able to drill into the earth and have a release of geothermal energy at the scale necessary for commercial electrical plants powered by geothermal energy.

Even in the areas near volcanic activity in Iceland, geothermal drilling is only successful in releasing energy for commercial operations 60 percent of the time. The second geothermal power plant constructed in Iceland has 47 wells drilled and 40 percent of them are not producing at this time.

click image to zoomPhoto by Rich KellerBjarni Bjarnason, CEO of Reykjavik Energy, spoke to a small group of journalists from the U.S. and Europe as they visited the HellisheiÕl Power Plant. A small group of journalists from North America and Europe visited this Hellisheiðl Power Plant, and the group also heard the CEO of Reykjavik Energy give a sneak peak of his keynote presentation at the world geothermal conference that begins Wednesday in Reykjavik.

CEO Bjarni Bjarnason said the world’s energy consumption is increasing rapidly, and renewable energy remains a very small percentage of the total energy consumed/used, but there is enough geothermal energy to last mankind for eternity. The problem is not the energy being lacking but the extraction methods haven’t been developed yet to make it easy and economical worldwide. No other country is using geothermal similar to Iceland. It is the leader by far.

“Nothing has been happening with geothermal, but that is something we have to change,” Bjarnason said. Iceland is in the best circumstance possible for geothermal energy after starting to tap it 100 years ago and then converting the whole Island to geothermal starting in 1973. Residential heat is now 100 percent renewable from geothermal or electricity from geothermal or hydro energy.

Part of the stalled activity is cost of drilling geothermal wells and the risk of a dry one, which happens quite often even with all the geology used to forecast success. “It is similar to oil drilling. You don’t know what you’ve got until you’re finished,” Bjarnason said.

The country also devalued its currency by 50 percent during the monetary crisis that hit Europe and the world, which caused a setback to progressive plans for geothermal energy activity. Reykjavik Energy was hard hit during the downturn in economics.

The second thing that caused concern around the world was the eruption of a volcano on the island and the dust cloud that spread across Europe a couple years ago. What is so interesting is that there was no business interruption on Iceland, and the international airport was closed only one day as the ash floated away from the country to Europe, explained Bjarnason.

There has been no loss of life from volcanic eruptions or earthquakes on Iceland in modern times, other than one over zealous scientist. Earth movement is quite subtle with the country stretching from 2 to 4 centimeters per year.

To conclude, the Invest in Iceland and Reykjavik Energy officials all agreed that the effort to grow the country’s economy is not going to happen by only focusing on exporting their excess power but will be better for Iceland if industries/customers are imported to use the power.

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Singapore  |  March, 08, 2013 at 12:27 AM

Kenya is shifting from hydropower to geothermal energy as its base load. Already
over a billion investments have already been introduced in the hub of rapidly
growing East Africa. That is why, the 4th annual World Geothermal Energy Summit
will be held in Nairobi, Kenya on 12-13 December 2013 to dig deep into the issues
of regulatory and private sector support, introduction of investment and
equipment and requirements important to investors and developers. Site tour at
the KenGen Geothermal Plant already confirmed on 13 December 2013! Call our
Secretariat for more info at +65 6818 6344 or email
geothermal@arcmediaglobal.com. Visit
http://www.arcmediaglobal.com/geothermal

singapore  |  June, 05, 2013 at 05:06 AM

World Geothermal Energy Summit 2013
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Connecting Technology, Financing and Regulation towards a Sustainable East
African Geothermal Energy Portfolio
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5-6 December 2013
Nairobi, Kenya & Olkaria Geothermal Field, Naivasha, Kenya
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According to the African Union Commission (AUC), the Geothermal Risk Mitigation
Fund, launched last month in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Ethiopia and
administered by German insurance company, KfW, will provide more than Sh5
billion (50 million euros) to compensate companies or government bodies that are
unsuccessful in undertaking exploration drilling of geothermal prospects.

This fund entails that organisations which take insurance cover with KfW get back
80 per cent of the money invested in the exploratory activities if it drills a well with
capacity to produce less than 5MW. Kenya expects to benefit significantly as it is
estimated to hold more than two thirds of the geothermal potential in the region,
estimated to be over 10,000MW. This is why, the 4th World Geothermal Energy
Summit 2013 will be held in Nairobi, Kenya on 5-6 December 2013.

The 4th annual WGES will discuss the opportunities to ensure your return on capital
(ROC) in this ebullient emerging market as you solidify your East African
geothermal energy business, including:

>> Contract formats and indicative power costs under Joint Venture and Energy
Conversion Agreements

>> Geothermal risk mitigation

>> Land acquisition and management and

>> Human resettlement strategy and execution


SECURE YOUR PLACE today in one of these 4 easy ways:

>> Call: +65 6818 6344
>> Fax: +65 6818 634