Concord Monitor editorial
A hot proposal comes before Bow

By Monitor staff
July 1, 2010
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Could Atlantic Geothermal's plan to build what could be a massive, pollution-free power plant in Bow be the next best thing to cold fusion, the limitless energy source that has not, and may never, pan out? Heat left over from the formation of the Earth, supplemented by heat from the slow decay of radioactive elements, keeps the rock far below ground hot. Humans have made use of that heat for thousands of years. Cavemen soaked their sore feet in warm springs, and Romans heated their home with hot water that bubbled up from below.
Geothermal energy has been used on a grander scale to heat communities and to make steam to spin turbines to produce electricity for generations. And small, shallow geothermal systems used to heat homes, schools and other buildings have become increasingly common in New England. But, alas, the region has no hot springs or geysers. It does have areas underlain by Concord granite, a bedrock that the fledgling geothermal company says is particularly suitable for conducting heat upward from miles below ground. Deep wells drilled into that granite allow water to be pumped in, heated enough to be used to economically generate electricity and returned to below in a closed loop system.
Such a power plant could run indefinitely, its fuel supply, heat in rock at 300 to 400 degrees, constantly replenished from below at no cost. David Reynolds, Atlantic's president says the plant he hopes to build could eventually produce electricity for as little as 5 cents per kilowatt hour. The cheap energy would lure businesses to the area, creating hundreds of jobs, and the power plant would pay some $30 million in property taxes.
Is this a pie-in-the-ground idea? Maybe not. In 2007, a team of 18 scientists assembled by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology issued a report that concluded that tapping just 2 percent of the energy available in "hot rocks" could supply more than 2,500 times as much energy as the nation currently uses. And it would be virtually pollution free. Drilling technology, while constantly improving, may not be advanced enough to make hot rock energy mining successful yet. Reynolds believes it can be done, and the payoff for success is enormous. Others are skeptical.
We hope Reynolds is right, more for the sake of the planet than for the property taxes and economic prosperity success would mean. The Concord granite formation can be found under Concord and in other places in the state, and the plant does not necessarily have to be in Bow. Reynolds said he queried Concord first, via the internet, but heard from Bow selectman Harry Judd, an energy attorney, first. Judd sped the process along to help Atlantic meet deadlines to secure federal grants to pay for testing.
Reynolds isn't the only one eager to tap the heat near the heart of the Earth. Research on hot rock energy mining is going on all over the globe and the charitable division of Google.org has invested millions in efforts to tap the Earth's heat for cheap energy.
As of last year, no plant like the one Reynolds wants to build was operating in the United States, according to the magazine Scientific American. The difficulties, however, appear to be technical, not theoretical. Scientists know a limitless supply of cheap clean energy is underfoot. The brilliant inventor Nikola Tesla proposed tapping the heat in the Earth's bedrock as early as 1901. The question is, does Atlantic Geothermal or any other company yet have the tools to tap that energy. We certainly hope so, because bathing coastlines in crude and burning coal certainly isn't the answer.

Concord Monitor on line news paper wrote;

Date: June 29, 2010
Section: Front page
Company seeks heat under Bow
Town opens land up for exploration
By:Trent Spiner Monitor staff   
Bow officials have agreed to open the town's land to energy exploration after a Massachusetts scientist said geological maps show there's enough stored energy underground to indefinitely produce more power than the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant. If the right mix of rock formations exist beneath Bow, J. David Reynolds said his company, Atlantic Geothermal LLC, would like to build a geothermal power plant at a cost of between $768 million and $5.5 billion. It would transfer heat from the deepest part of the earth's outer crust - 30,000 to 40,000 feet deep - to the surface, where it would power turbines to create electricity.
"It's pretty exciting technology," said Harry Judd, chairman of the board of selectmen and an attorney specializing in energy issues.
Selectmen voted last week to allow Atlantic Geothermal to conduct non-intrusive testing throughout the town and agreed to help the company approach landowners if additional testing is required on private property.
Testing will not require drilling or cutting trees, Reynolds said. A series of devices on the surface of the earth will measure the magnetic and electric conductivity of rock formations up to 40,000 feet deep. With that information, Reynolds said, a three-dimensional model of the bedrock can be formed, enabling scientists to determine the best spots to tap for energy.
"We want to draw heat from deeper down even though we're not going to the core of the earth," he said.
With a price tag of $1 million, testing can't move forward until the company is awarded a grant from the federal Department of Energy, said Reynolds, the company's founder and manager. His deal with the town expires in 180 days.
Reynolds said earlier studies have shown there are underground vertical formations of granite in the Concord area that measure between 300 and 400 degrees. He said other scientists have found no evidence that the heat was being produced by radioactive isotopes breaking down within the earth's mantle, so he hopes those rocks are being heated from the earth's core.
"We want to expand the knowledge of the geology in the area," he said. "We believe it will verify what we believe to be there."
If tests show that the granite formations are conduits for energy from the core, Reynolds said, an intricate series of piping can be constructed underground to capture the energy. That piping would draw heat to the surface, where it would boil liquid to power turbines. On the surface, the power plant would have a cooling tower and take up less than 10 acres.
Daniel Enderton, executive director of MIT's Sustainable Energy Revolution Program, said there is a wide spectrum of uses for geothermal energy, from moderating the temperature in a home or business to attempting to produce power.
There are two general theories on how to make a large-scale geothermal plant work, though they can share characteristics, Enderton said.
"Hydrothermal systems" seek to capture superheated water that is already beneath the surface while "engineered geothermal systems" fracture pieces of rock below the surface and heat water by pumping it between the cracks.
"There's a lot of work that still needs to be done by researchers and entrepreneurs and engineers to make this technology work," Enderton said. "It's a very exciting and active part of geothermal development."
Reynolds likened the operation to a closed radiator in a car that circulates heat.
If construction moves forward, Reynolds said the power plant can be built in phases starting with a 160-megawatt facility. That's about a third of what the coal-fired Merrimack Station in Bow produces. A plant that size would generate 100 jobs and about $30 million in annual tax revenue, Reynolds estimated. It would cost $760 million, he said.
Reynolds said the plant could also be built as a 330- or 1,330-megawatt facility. The largest facility would take six years to build, employ 200 people and produce almost $200 million in annual tax revenue.
The plant would run around the clock and produce no emissions.
Atlantic Geothermal has evaluated five locations throughout New England, but so far Bow seems to be the most promising. Judd said the proximity to major power transmission lines would make building a plant in Bow easier.
"I'm an optimist," Reynolds said. "The main driving factor behind why we're doing this is to develop alternative energy."
Reynolds approached Judd last week about representing the company as it tried to move to the Concord area. In a letter to selectmen, Judd said he would forgo the business to help bring the project to Bow.
Selectmen voted to authorize Judd to negotiate a deal with the company on the town's behalf. In a lengthy meeting Friday morning, Judd, with the backing of Town Manager Jim Pitts and the town's attorney, wrote a memo setting guidelines for the use of town lands. Selectmen have the authority to lease land for up to a year. A vote at town meeting is required for a longer period.
"They're not going to pay the town anything now," Pitts said. "If they get interested in a site, of course we'll talk money."
In the memo, Atlantic Geothermal agree to give the town two days notice before it starts testing. It must also turn over test results within 14 days.
Trent Spiner can be reached at 369-3306 or tspiner@cmonitor.com.

 Concord Monitor

(BOSTON, MA, June 22, 2010) Today Atlantic Geothermal LLC presented its Closed Loop Energy Mine (CLEM) project to members of the Massachusetts state government, with guarded optimism for the future of their idea in the state.

Company founder David Reynolds and market development manager Kevin Downey delivered the presentation to Massachusetts state senator Marc Pacheco and state representatives Frank Smizik and Matthew Patrick. Pacheco and Smizik are the chairmen of the Senate and House Committees on Global Warming and Climate Change, respectively. The goal was to gain state government support for a feasibility study of the CLEM project.

The presentation showcased the particulars of the CLEM project, from the technical aspects of the mine itself, to the advantages that CLEM presents versus other sources of power and even open-loop geothermal systems. Two of the five New England sites selected by Atlantic Geothermal for feasibility studies are in Massachusetts, in the towns of Wendell and Fitchburg.

Over the course of the hour-long presentation, Reynolds was met with enthusiasm, and many questions from the three elected officials. This shows that all three politicians were engaged with and interested in the possibilities of the CLEM project. At the end of the presentation, two of the three said they would be willing to support Atlantic Geothermal's endeavors, with the third guarded but optimistic about the project's future.

Atlantic Geothermal will move forward by scheduling another round of meetings and presentations with state officials and scientists in order to create contacts and generate further support for the project. In the meantime, the company will also attempt to secure investments by a July 9 deadline that will help it retain a substantial federal grant for the CLEM project.

This BP well disaster may be far more difficult to cap then many people realize. Because the weight of the ocean is helping to pump the oil out of the ground, in the end potentially hundreds of millions of barrels of oil may be released before the oil stops coming out of the ground. The dispersants applied do not make the oil go away, they just help disperse it underwater, and this could kill sea life on a scale never before seen by modern man.

A lot of people hold BP solely responsible for the oil spill, but in many ways society is responsible for this disaster as well. Virtually all of us buy gasoline, and we want it to cost as little as possible. We are in essence paying the oil companies to go out there and make that happen. Getting things done with the least amount of effort and at the lowest cost possible increases profit for the oil industry, and most people do not care how this is done.

It is our dependence on low cost energy from oil that got us into this mess. Most people feel it is the responsibility of the government to find alternatives for our dependence on oil. A quote comes to mind, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country". If people do not actively and personally support alternatives to oil, very little will change. This is because so many people are paying the oil companies to do what they're doing right now, and they make a lot of money keeping things just the way they are.

If you want change for a better future you have to actively support those changes. Atlantic Geothermal LLC from Erving, Massachusetts, wants to make geothermal power viable on a large scale using its CLEM (Closed Loop Energy Mine) design. However, the government can be slow to act on innovative concepts like this without a lot of popular support. So far DOE is only providing geothermal research and development funding for fractured rock concepts. This concept, when compared to the CLEM concept on an evolutionary scale, is about as effective at producing electricity as hunter/gathers were at producing food. The geothermal EGS model that has been funded is the most simplistic idea possible for geothermal power because that is what takes the least amount of effort to develop. Excepting minor changes, the existing model is based on knowledge over a hundred years old. The latest technological innovations had not even been imagined back then, and we feel that any serious exploration of Geothermal Energy as a viable alternative cannot proceed without them.

If sufficient funding and a determined research and development effort is put into developing commercially viable large-scale geothermal electric power plants, that sector could produce more power than all the fossil fuels combined, and at a much lower cost to society in terms of both dollars and consequences. This is clean green power, just like wind and solar, but with significant advantages. Geothermal is base load power, meaning it runs 24/7, not just when the wind blows or when the sun it out. Hydro electric is base load as well, however most rivers in developed nations have already been developed, so there is little room for expansion.

If we want the geothermal resource to be sustainable over the very long term and not be used up in 20 - 30 years (or less), the system has to be designed for an optimal recharge rate. The primitive (existing EGS) concept of designing for an optimal depletion rate dedicated to using up the resource over a relatively short time, is preventing the geothermal industry from reaching its full potential. The amount of energy consumed to pump water back into the depletion model is very wasteful and limits the size of power plant that is economical to build.

New England has excellent geology to exploit, if the government ever decides that designing for an optimal recharge rate is a better way to go.  If the recharge rate is the best criteria for designing geothermal power plants, then geology and thermal diffusivity of the rock is more important then finding hot rocks close to the surface. Some of the best rock for thermal diffusivity is quartzite granite with a large crystal matrix. Guess what New England has? New England is built on this kind of rock, and a lot of it.  

Atlantic Geothermal LLC's CLEM concept has been endorsed by Mass. Congressman John Olver, and the New Hampshire House Science, Technology, and Energy Committee. Massachusetts State Representatives Stan Rosenberg and Steven Kulick sponsored this project for the Massachusetts Energy Committee, who liked the idea in its early stages of development. The Vermont Natural Resources & Energy Committee also liked the Atlantic Geothermal CLEM concept and is expected to vote on their endorsement when they reconvene in January next year.   

For more information about Geothermal Electric Generation or the CLEM Design, visit www.AtlanticGeothermal.com or call 413.587.0021.

Atlantic Geothermal announced today the official unveiling of two new pieces of commissioned artwork designed to demonstrate the attractive future possible with virtually unlimited supplies of clean, cheap electricity supplied by large scale geothermal electrical generation plants like the kind promoted by Atlantic Geothermal.

The two artists were Thai Vo and Geoff Kostecki, working in association with Positronic Design, The SEO Company.

Please enjoy the art, we'll be following up with detailed articles explaining what's depicted later.

The economics are looking favorable for a 160 Mw geothermal power plant estimated to cost $760 million. Compare that to an estimate for a 47 Mw biomass plant planned for Greenfield, MA at $240 million. (3 x 47= 141 Mw and 3x 240= $720 million) The estimated cost for geothermal is about the same. With no cost for fuel, there are only maintenance, employee and construction finance expenses. The maintenance expense is estimated to be comparable to that of hydro electric.

The geography is flexible a road is good, a rail line would be ideal. The first one built should be in a low population area close to 160-1,400 Mw power lines.

Most important is geology and type of rock. Large granite formations like the Warwick, Pelham and Fitchburg domes have good potential. These domes are massive and extend across a number of towns. Rock type is important for thermal diffusivity and quartzite granite formations with large crystal structure (not uncommon in New England) can be some of the best types of rock for thermal diffusivity.

The geology of how the rock was formed is also important. Numerous granitic plutonic masses in New England are believed by many geologists to have been formed by melting through the early basalt granites when the continents were being formed. This gives them a direct connection to deeper and hotter rocks.

Here is a little side history about the development of geothermal that most people do not know: D.O.E. is supporting geothermal research called E.G.S. This concept is based on the idea of expanding geothermal geyser fields with hydro fracturing. It only works well if you have the right conditions for a geyser field. This concept is the preferred option if you have those rare conditions; however with increased depth this idea becomes increasingly problematic. 

The next generation of geothermal power plant we believe will be a quantum step forward for the geothermal industry. We call it C.L.E.M. (short for Closed Loop Energy Mine). This will come about when people start to understand that the thermal diffusivity of a rock formation and geological connection to deeper/larger heat supplies are more valuable. This quantum step is based on the idea of designing for an optimal recharge rate. The better the recharge rate is of a geothermal system, the less surface area the underground thermal exchange system would require. Smaller can also translates into lower cost to build per unit of power producing capacity.

It may be discovered that New England has some of the best granitic formations for this concept. East Coast geothermal economic potential may be greater than most people ever imagined, due to some of these granitic domes. In short, a closed loop geothermal system of interconnecting pipes could be built in almost any rock formation, but the amount of electricity it could produce is tied to the system's ability to recharge.  

Using the geothermal system called E.G.S., the rate of recharge is not important for most people. With E.G.S., porous hot rocks close to the surface are the prime determining factors in evaluating a geothermal resource. These systems are designed to use up a geothermal resource over 30 years and then be decommissioned, so it does not matter if the resource takes as much as 300 years to fully recharge.       

This 30 year plan works, but only serves one generation. There is nothing left for the next generation to build on, old systems have to be demolished. Every generation has the burden of building new power plants and or well fields. Large hydro electric power plants like the Hoover Dam have stimulated economic growth for generations and it is unlikely they would have been built if all we could do was a 30 year lifespan plan.

The proposed C.L.E.M 160 Mw geothermal project could be expanded to 1,400 Mw as demand increased, producing and selling electricity for around $.05/Kwhr. and doing that for generations. Not having to build new power plants saves massive amounts of resources. These savings and other products produced with a stable supply of electricity makes possible long-term stable economic growth.   

The Feingold-Ensign Support Renewable Energy Act, if signed into law, would require that all forms of renewable energy meet a new federal requirement, called the renewable electricity standard (RES). Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and John Ensign (R-NV) have collaborated to sponsor this bill, which would be very good for the Geothermal Electric Generation community.

EnergyBoom.com reports:

Current RES proposals in Congress require utilities to use a certain amount of renewable energy, but limit the types of renewable energy that would qualify. This bill would allow all forms of renewable energy to qualify, such as small-scale renewable technologies that directly use renewable energy like solar water heating, geothermal heating, or alternative lighting technologies.

According to Feingold, as Congress considers reforming American energy policies, instead of picking winners and losers, it should be encouraging all types of renewable energy.

Atlantic Geothermal encourages all supporters of clean, green, alternative energy to call their senators and representatives and urge them to support this bill. The time is running out for creative solutions to today's energy problems that are going to help with the global warming / climate change problem the Earth faces today. If we wait too long, it will be too late.

This bill is a serious attempt to address many of the structural impediments that keep green energy from being commercially viable. Subsidies for the Oil, Coal, Nuclear, and non-green energy sector keep the market price for energy produced by these technologies artificially low. If it wasn't for the Price-Anderson Act, for instance, the number of commercial nuclear power plants that would have been built in the United States would have been ZERO. The insurance companies weren't going to insure them. Without insurance, they couldn't be built, because no banks would finance them. The congress had to step in and shield the insurance companies from liability should a total disaster happen.

That's right, the US taxpayer gets to subsidize the nuclear power industry if anything melts down. Actuaries can do math pretty well, and they new the risk was WELL above zero, which is what the early promoters of nuclear power would have had us believe.

Nuclear is NOT the answer. Large-scale geothermal electric generation using the CLEM geothermal model IS the answer, in our opinion, and we think this bill will help make that a reality.

There's a lot of activity going on in the Geothermal Energy sector with regards to venture capital technology investment. A recent article in The Market Oracle catalogs these trends and analyzes them in some detail. They say:

Dr. Marc Bustin, Ph.D., FRSC, Casey Research Energy Team writes: The geothermal industry has been taking one step forward and two steps back over the last year. On the forward side are grants and interest-free loans aplenty, particularly from governments wanting to jump on the green-energy bandwagon. Pushing back is not only some tough geology with deep, dry-rock drilling projects, but also the public fear of earthquakes along with other environmental issues.

Overall, what we're seeing is a reality check for geothermal energy. It still leads the pack among the alternative energies as a sustainable source of base-load energy with no storage requirements. However, making the leap from tapping natural reservoirs to actually creating them, as EGS (enhanced geothermal systems) projects are trying to do, is proving harder than a lot of people have thought.

There is definitely a potential of earthquakes occurring in geothermal areas - case in point: the tremors at the Geox project in Landau, Germany. That was neither the first nor last time that these rumblings and geothermal projects have happened in the same neighborhood; after all, areas where hot rocks occur relatively near the surface also tend to be areas prone to earthquakes. The EGS process of fracturing rock layers via hydraulic pressure, necessary to inject and heat the water before pumping it back up, can also trigger seismic shifts in underground rocks.

This article points out the need for venture capitalists to consider alternative forms of Geothermal Electrical Generation besides EGS. Atlantic Geothermal's CLEM (Closed Loop Energy Mine) Technology successfully addresses the major issues connected to EGS, like earthquake risk and eventual depletion of the resource (which renders capital investments of hundreds of millions of dollars worthless once that happens).

We recommend our readers review these plans and support our efforts to get them more investment and attention from government funding agencies. Geothermal Power has the potential to revolutionize Green Energy Production if it's done correctly, and soon enough.

It's always a happy circumstance when you can solve two problems with one solution, especially if both are big, seemingly intractable, problems.

This is the case with both the challenge of slowing/stopping the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and creating good, high-paying, secure jobs for our population.

Fortunately, a massive investment in training and infrastructure, and continuing support for installation, of Green Energy Technologies can do just this. Green Energy is the wave of the future, and all the leading economists around the world acknowledge this. In a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, it states:

Renewable energy has been one of the bright spots for the struggling U.S. economy. In 2007 and 2008, more wind power was installed in the United States than in the previous 20 years combined, representing a $27 billion investment. More than 70 wind turbine component manufacturing facilities opened, expand-ed, or were announced. Moreover, according to their respective trade associations, the U.S. wind industry employed 85,000 people in 2008, up 35,000 from 2007, and the solar energy industry employed more than 80,000 people, up more than 15,000 from 2006.

According to new analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a national standard that would require all electric utilities to increase their use of renewable electricity to at least 25 percent by 2025 would create more "green" jobs, lower consumer energy bills in every region of the country, and reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) and other harmful emissions from power plants--the biggest source of global warming pollution in the United States.

We strongly agree with the UCS and are actively engaged in lobbying for increased government support for these activities, particularly the generation of electricity through innovative use of geothermal power.

We encourage everyone to contact their representatives and urge them to support Green Energy development.

Came across this great video about Geothermal Electric Generation in Nicaragua. Very informative, especially to people who may be unfamiliar with how geothermal electricity generation can take place on a large scale.

This short video goes over what Geothermal Power is and how it is THE solution to greener energy supplies for the world. Filmed in Nicaragua at the end of 2007, this video was made in conjunction with a corporate documentary produced by NetTV for Polaris Geothermal Inc.. Polaris Geothermal is a renewable energy company focused on the design and construction of geothermal energy projects in Central and South America.