“Because if we were to get a significant amount of
the monies either as grants or soft loans, the extent of the equity which they
themselves have to put in, that is to say, the Emera/Reykjavik Geothermal
consortium, will be reduced to that extent, and then it will obviously be
reflected in the kind of pricing which you will have for the commodity at the
end of the day”
Prime Minister
of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves commenting on his country
plans to use Geothermal Energy for Electricity
St. Vincent is tapping into the heat energy
underground.
This as Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the
Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves has announced plans to tap into 15MW of
Geothermal Energy for usage in their power by 2018 as stated in the article “Geothermal
power plant to be operational by June 2018”, published Tuesday September 2,
2014, The Jamaica Gleaner.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines began dabbling with
Geothermal energy back in November 2013 when North America-based energy and
services company Emera and Iceland-based Reykjavik Geothermal approached their Government
as stated in “St
Vincent launches geothermal energy Project”, published Sunday, November 03,
2013 2:12 PM, The Jamaica Observer.
They saw the potential in the Project and agreed to fund
the exploration phase of the Project, following in the footsteps of other
islands such as Dominica and Montserrat as I'd explained in my Geezam blog article entitled “Geothermal
Energy in Jamaica – Steam Power from Magma Underground can cause Earthquakes
and Contaminated Water”.
Geothermal
Energy Funding – First Test Wells to be drilled by July 2015
Additionally, they also have been getting Grant Aid
Funding or Soft Loans from Organizations and Multilateral Lending Agencies,
namely:
1. Caribbean
Development Bank
2. Government
of New Zealand
3. Japan
International Corporation Agency
4. The
International Renewable Energy Agency in Abu Dhabi
Together with the St. Vincent and the Grenadines
sole Electricity Utility Company, VINLEC, they did some 34 magnetotelluric and
transient electromagnetic (TEM) sounding sites. More recently since August
2014, they've been doing some thermal infrared and LIDAR (Light Detection and
Ranging) imagery using Drones in search of geothermal anomalies.
The expectation is that by July 2015, they'll start
drilling some test wells as was done, to quote Prime Minister of St. Vincent
and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves: “It is expected that by June next year,
a business case model will be available and drilling can commence after all
contracts and the private public partnership agreements have been negotiated
and agreed”.
And as Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the
Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves has assured St. Vincent and, no Marijuana plants
were harmed in the search for Geothermal Energy, quote: “Now, I just want to
say this, that very shortly, we are going to see these planes flying over. I
want, in this way, to indicate to forest users that these planes are entirely
innocent. ... . They are not there in search of anything else. Because as the
forest users are aware, since this government has come to office, there has
been no use of aircraft to address any form of agriculture in the hills”.
Geothermal
Energy and the Environment – 2018 beats our Vision 2030
In order to be compliant, though, the foreigners
have been playing nicely along with St. Vincent and the Grenadines Mining and
Exploration Laws. They've complied by doing the following studies as well
before they began boring any test wells:
1. Infrastructure
study
2. Environmental
Impact Assessment study
3. Volcanic
Risk Mitigation study
Here in Jamaica, Geologist Krishna Vaswani was also
exploring Jamaica Geothermal potential since January 2013 as I'd chronicled in
my blog article
entitled “Geologist
Krishna Vaswani to tap into 15MW of Geothermal Energy in Jamaica - Poisoned
Groundwater and more Earthquakes are possible problems with Geothermal Energy”.
The risks as many including Earthquakes and
Groundwater contamination as explained in my blog article above!
But given their progress, it makes me wonder if
Jamaica will ever achieve our own aims of tapping Renewable Energy, seeing as Hydroelectric
Power is so unreliable as explained in my blog article
entitled “JPSCo
says Hydroelectric down 15% - Unreliable Rainfall due to Climate Change as
Solar and Wind fill 115MW Renewable Energy Contract“.
As if they succeed, they’ll beat Jamaica’s Vision
2030 targets as it relates to Renewable Energy’s contribution to the
Electricity Grid.
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