Geothermal

Contact Energy fully commissioned New Zealand’s largest geothermal power plant last year, nudging installed geothermal capacity to a shade over 1 GW. Nearly 80% of the country’s electricity is sourced from

Brine, the waste stream of the geothermal power production cycle, is usually considered a nuisance. High in corrosive minerals, even when reinjected, it’s challenging to manage. So when Simbol Inc. showed it had a way to turn this waste stream into a revenue stream by mining it for high-value minerals like lithium, a lot of […]

The U.S. Census Bureau released data on Nov. 18 showing that revenues for electric power generation industries that use renewable energy resources grew 49% from 2007 to 2012, while fossil fuel electric power generation industry revenues decreased 6.7% during the same time period. Fossil fuel revenues continued to dwarf renewable totals, bringing in $79.7 billion […]

This August, in a bid to bolster its latent geothermal energy industry, Indonesia passed new laws that allow geothermal exploration in protected areas such as forests. Located in the Ring of Fire—a string of volcanoes and fault lines around the Pacific Basin—the archipelago has estimated potential geothermal resources of up to 29 GW. State power […]

Geothermal generation is clean, renewable, and cost-effective over the long term, and the U.S. has vast untapped geothermal resources. So why is it still operating on the sidelines?   For the U.S. geothermal energy industry, 2013 ended on a positive note. Cyrq Energy’s Dale Burgett geothermal plant, a 4-MW unit in southwest New Mexico, began […]

Consensus is that the locus of world energy demand has shifted away from the U.S. and Europe to Asia, driven by the soaring economies of the 10 countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations

El Hierro, the smallest island on Spain’s Canary archipelago, in June became what developers say is the first energy-isolated territory to power itself solely with renewables. The project, which was

Fourteen members of the World Trade Organization (WTO)—including the U.S., China, the European Union (EU), and Japan—on Tuesday launched negotiations to eliminate tariffs or custom duties on wind turbines, solar products, and other environmental goods.  The first phase of negotiations between the 14 WTO members, which make up 86% of the global environmental goods trade, […]

At the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) annual meeting this week in Las Vegas, the tone was one of collaboration with partners from Washington to distributed generation companies. Those partnerships will be needed as the investor-owned utility (IOU) industry fights not so much a war on coal as a war for mindshare and wallet share in […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) plans to make an additional $4 billion in loan guarantees available to help commercialize U.S. renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies that avoid, reduce, or sequester greenhouse gases. The DOE on Wednesday issued a draft loan guarantee solicitation under Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (through Section […]

In a stark departure from the zero-nuclear future proposed by a previous administration, the cabinet of Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Friday endorsed restarting the country’s idled nuclear reactors as it develops more renewables.  The cabinet on Friday officially adopted the first Basic Energy Plan since the Fukushima disaster, a 78-page document (in Japanese) that […]

In 2009, when the first borehole in a series of wells was drilled as part of the Icelandic Deep Drilling Project (IDDP) in Krafla, northeast Iceland (Figure 5), it unexpectedly penetrated into magma with a

A new kind of geothermal power being developed by a team of scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the University of Minnesota, and the Ohio State University could sequester carbon

In 2010, intent on continuing its commitment to energy efficiency and preventing climate change, Japan enacted its second Basic Energy Plan. The new policy document, revising the first, from 2003, called for

President Obama spoke briefly about energy in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, though he declared at the outset: “The all-of-the-above energy strategy I announced a few years ago is working, and today, America is closer to energy independence than we’ve been in decades.” That statement rejected recently expressed concerns from 18 […]

The Don A. Campbell geothermal power plant—a 16-MW base load complex located in Mineral County, Nev.—began full capacity operation on Dec. 6, 2013. The plant, named after the geologist who discovered the resource, is supplying electricity to Southern California Public Power Authority (SCPPA) under a Power Purchase Agreement. SCPPA, in turn, resells the power to […]

Germany’s levy to promote renewables under the 2008 Renewable Energy Act (EEG) will climb to €0.624/kWh in 2014—a 20% increase that represents nearly a fifth of residential electricity bills. The measure

Legislative efforts to establish a federal renewable electricity standard (RES) kicked up last week with the separate introduction of two bills by Senate Democrats. Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Mark Udall (D-Colo.), and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) on Oct. 29 introduced the Renewable Electricity Standard Act of 2013 (S.1595), a bill that would create a national standard of 25% renewable energy […]

Scaling is one of the most frequently occurring problems in geothermal power plants and can prohibit the control of well flow if it builds in the well or wellhead. At HS Energy on the Reykjanes Peninsula in

Nearly 100 renewable energy and environmental groups and businesses have asked the Energy Information Administration (EIA) to reevaluate renewable energy forecasts, alleging the agency’s projections don’t reflect “the current status and recent, real-world growth rates of renewables.” In a Sept. 10 letter to EIA Administrator Adam Sieminski, the coalition says the agency’s estimates in past […]

A new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) suggests wind and solar generation could become cost-effective without federal subsidies if they are sited in the most productive locations. “It is too early to say how strong the post-2025 market for renewables will be or whether it will be primarily market-driven or policy-driven. In […]

Oklahoma will seek a rehearing of its regional haze case against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) before the full 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, state Attorney General Scott Pruitt confirmed on Wednesday. On July 19, a divided three-judge panel threw out the state’s claims  that the EPA had “impermissibly rejected” a State Implementation Plan (SIP) […]

Te Mihi Power Station is a two-unit 166-MW geothermal plant currently undergoing commissioning on New Zealand’s North Island. It replaces the Wairakei Power Station constructed in 1958—but with a much smaller environmental footprint. The double flash technology selected produces ~25% more power from the same amount of geothermal fluid that is currently used at Wairakei. For its continuing commitment to renewable geothermal energy, Contact Energy Ltd.’s Te Mihi Power Station is the winner of POWER’s 2013 Marmaduke Award for excellence in power plant problem-solving. The award is named for Marmaduke Surfaceblow, the fictional marine engineer and plant troubleshooter par excellence.

Even though it enjoys sizeable coal and natural gas reserves, Indonesia struggles to provide electricity to its growing economy. Geography is its most obvious challenge. Others include evolving international markets and an energy sector that remains highly politicized.

Driven by the booming growth of generation from hydro, wind, and solar photovoltaics (PV), generation from renewables on a terawatt-hour basis is set to surpass that from natural gas and double nuclear’s share by 2016, becoming the world’s second-most important global electricity source after coal, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

One of the first enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) was connected to the U.S. electric grid this April, marking a major milestone for the fledgling technology that seeks to tap the enormous terrestrial heat potential deep within Earth’s crust using directional drilling and pressurized water.

Panelists at a House hearing today refuted varied claims concerning if and how increased natural gas and renewables generation pose widespread challenges to the reliability of the electric grid. Some pointed to ineffective rules in the restructured wholesale power market and the failure of conventional power plants as being more of a threat to grid reliability.

Public and private investment in solar, wind, and other renewables worldwide declined 11% in 2012 from an adjusted 2011 record of $302 billion, a new survey from Pew Charitable Trusts shows. Yet the global renewable sector still registered a record 88 GW of new nameplate capacity last year, and China reclaimed the lead in global renewables investments from the U.S., it says.

Bipartisan legislation introduced on Wednesday by a bicameral group of lawmakers seeks to give renewable energy project investors access to an existing corporate structure whose tax benefits are now only available to investors in fossil fuel–based energy projects.

Energy demand in Mexico, according to the Secretary of Energy (SENER), will increase by approximately 4% each year for the next ten years, and with it the potential for private sector growth in the industry. Download the report.