ANNOUNCEMENT: Prospectus for Investment

Atlantic Geothermal, LLC has prepared a prospectus for investment that is now available by email request.

GEOTHERMAL FEATURE: Heat Rises III

A Superior Idea

At first glance, MIT’s Prof. Jefferson W. Tester was doubtful about the practicality of Atlantic Geothermal’s “heat canal” concept. Once Dr. Tester took a good look at the heat canal idea, however, his skepticism changed. Should the concept prove workable, Tester told Atlantic Geothermal’s founder, David Reynolds, the heat canal approach to enhanced geothermal energy development would offer real advantages to geothermal heat mining.

Let’s be clear on the importance of the Feb. 12 meeting between Tester* and Reynolds. An expression of geniune interest by one of the world’s foremost authorities on geothermal energy can go a long way toward bringing a good idea into the real world of analysis, conclusion and validation. This would be very good for Atlantic Geothermal, of course; but launching a superior geothermal energy production design would be enormously beneficial to a world in desperate need of clean energy sources. It would also, by the way, be very good for the U.S. economy, as well as the quality of the air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink.

Prof. Tester agreed that the heat canal looks good on paper. Rather than building multiple enhanced geothermal wells to pump water down into hot rock and extract steam to drive power-generating turbines at each site, the heat canal would draw from a much larger underground field for a much longer period of time — possibly measured in centuries rather than decades for the typical geothermal site. The heat canal, a horizontal bore 50 ft. wide and 80 to 100 miles long, 20,000 ft. below the surface and filled with sea water under pressure, with bore holes extending laterally 7500 ft. into hot rock, would generate an estimated 16 times the energy of the largest conventionally designed enhanced geothermal well, yet all that energy would be extracted from a single site. This design, Prof. Tester said, would significantly increase operating efficiency through a “synergy of systems.”

During their discussion, Tester and Reynolds identified two optional designs for the bore holes that could work with the required efficiency. One option would utilize fracturing of the hot rock area from which heat would be extracted. (Fracturing allows more heat to be extracted, but could multiply any tendency within the site toward geological instability.) The second option would involve drilling a lattice of bore holes and, while more expensive to install, would not require fracturing.

The next step is to have a mathematical analysis of for both options performed by GeothermEx, the big California-based geothermal exploration and development firm. Tester told Reynolds that he would be glad to verify mathematical calculations of heat extraction rates the geothermal canal model. While the sustainability of the heat canal design is being calculated, Atlantic Geothermal will be refining the design concept and trying to get a fix on projected costs. The immediate question is, how many billions of dollars are we talking about?

by Loren Jenks (lorenjenks@charter.net)

*Dr. Tester, the H. P. Meissner Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, directed the multidisciplinary task force that recently released its major report, “Future of Geothermal Energy: Impact of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) on tbe United States in the 21st Century.”

GEOTHERMAL FEATURE: Heat Rises II

“Renewable” or “Sustainable”

When is an energy source “renewable” and under what conditions is the same energy source “sustainable?” Before tackling these two different but not mutually exclusive terms with regard to geothermal energy, I scoured the Internet for “How many engineers does it take to install a light bulb?” jokes. I found some of varying quality, the best of which I will get to later.

On one engineering website I also found a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. The directions went like this: To a 2-L jacketed round reactor vessel with an overall heat transfer coefficient of about 100 Btu/F-ft2-hr, add ingredients one, two and three with constant agitation. In a second 2-L reactor vessel with a radial flow impeller operating at 100 rpm, add ingredients four, five, six, and seven until the mixture is homogeneous... and so on.

Since chocolate chip cookies are essential to the future of a technology-based civilized society (a statement that I consider inarguable) and noting that any currently available chocolate chip cookie recipe assumes a stable and affordable supply of electricity, let’s turn our attention once again to geothermal power generation.

To Atlantic Geothermal’s Dave Reynolds, the staggeringly comprehensive MIT study on geothermal resources, released last month, comes just in time. The report basically concludes that geothermal power generation, far from being a failed technology, simply hasn’t been sufficiently developed yet — this from scientists who were in on the original geothermal developments in the western U.S. 30 years ago.

Mostly as a result of the MIT study, there’s a lot of talk now about enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), which potentially could extend geothermal capacity beyond those places in the Western states where the earth’s mantle is thin and the ground occasionally moves with disturbing suddenness. There are no operational EGS plants in the United States, although test projects here and in other parts of the world have proven the feasibility of the concept.

Reynolds wants to make clear what the MIT report does not do. It does not establish that geothermal heat, a renewable energy source, is sustainable. That is, a reliable source that can be tapped indefinitely, because the flow of heat through subterranean rock layers will not be depleted by geothermal heat mining. This is what Atlantic Geothermal’s proposed Geothermal Heat Canal is all about — drawing heat from a large enough area to make significant power generation at the source site sustainable for generations.

The Heat Canal project goes beyond the conclusions advanced by the MIT study, which envisions clusters of single-source geothermal heat wells drilled vertically, just like oil wells. These heat wells would run productively for a certain number of years, then be left unused for about 3 times longer to allow temperatures in the heat basin to regenerate. That’s the renewable part. Basically, it’s like crop rotation, which is a step beyond the hunter-gatherer approach to food production.

Reynolds maintains that, with the Heat Canal, wells would not have to be abandoned at regular intervals. And they would not have to be sited in geologically unstable regions. He asserts that geothermal energy can be extracted in large amounts from sites that today are considered impractical — which so far is nearly everywhere. He also believes that with adequate research funding, we might be able to shave a decade or two from current projections for achieving energy self-sufficiency.

Is it worth doing? How much oil do you have in your back yard?

Oh, about the light bulb joke. It takes five engineers — one to design a light bulb that never needs changing, one to figure out how to rewire the grid, two to make the necessary installations, and one to write the software program that controls the wall switch. Got that?

by Loren Jenks (lorenjenks@charter.net)

Who in the world is visiting www.atlanticgeothermal.com?

Site statistics: www.atlanticgeothermal.com

In the past few weeks, has had more than 350 individual visitors from around the world. These visitors have viewed nearly 1000 pages, mostly in English, but in 7 other languages as well, including Chinese. Listed below are the numbers of visitors from each country and their languages. Country & Number of Unique Visitors United States 305 ~ Canada 22 ~ Australia 7 ~ United Kingdom 4 ~ Sweden 3 ~ Slovakia 2 ~ China 2 ~ Iceland 2 ~ Taiwan 1 ~ Indonesia 1 ~ India 1 ~ South Africa 1 ~ Greece 1 ~ France 1 ~ Spain 1 ~ Mexico 1 ~ Ukraine 1 Language & Number of Unique Visitors en-us (English -United States) 314 ~ en (English) 31 ~ zh-cn (Chinese PRC) 2 ~ es (Spanish Spain Traditional) 2 ~ sv (Swedish) 2 ~ zh-tw (Chinese Taiwan) 1 ~ el (Greek) 1 ~ fr (French Standard) 1 ~ sv-se (Swedish dialect)1 ~ ru (Russian) 1

GEOTHERMAL FEATURE: Heat Rises

Atlantic Geothermal’s Dave Reynolds is not reinventing the wheel; he’s building a coach from spare parts left lying around for years by the oil, gas and mining industries. In other words, as has been said already, the technology exists today to make the United States energy independent, perhaps indefinitely. How? By tapping into the heat that lies beneath our feet. If it’s done right, Reynolds claims, the energy obtainable from hot rocks is sustainable for centuries, does not require burning fossil fuels, will not pollute the environment, runs 24 hours a day seven days a week, can provide an unending supply of fresh water from sea water, and is not only achievable but affordable at today’s energy prices. His argument is compelling.

Sure, there are obstacles to overcome, questions to be answered. For example, how clean is it? Atlantic Geothermal advances a feasible design solution to concerns about mineral pollutants leached from subterranean rock. Could extended development of geothermal energy cause earthquakes? Well, listen folks, what they’re doing now, drilling into fissures between tectonic plates to mine readily available steam, does not fill me with reassurance. Atlantic Geothermal is advancing a project to run steam turbines on heat mined from almost anywhere within 100 miles of the ocean — specifically, New England, which is not considered a hotbed of geothermal capacity, nor of earthquakes.

The landmark MIT report on potential geothermal resources, released January 22, demonstrates with mountains of data that “enhanced geothermal systems” (EGS) can meet up to 10 percent of the nation’s current and projected electricity needs by 2050. This amount would replace the generating capacity that will be lost by the expected retirement of old coal-fired and nuclear generating plants.

Atlantic Geothermal’s visionary project leapfrogs the 30-year continuous operating life expectancies of EGS plants by greatly expanding the hot rock energy field. By drilling an 80- to 100-mile-long, 50-ft.-wide tunnel three miles below the surface, then expanding bore holes 1500 ft. laterally, the project could realize an energy field potentially 3,000 ft. wide and 80 miles long. Reynolds projects that one such system could generate 1600 megawatts of power per hour — 16 times the output of a large conventionally designed EGS plant, and nearly matching the output of Hoover Dam. And, due to the greatly expanded heat reservoir of a field that size, the generating capacity would last indefinitely. Land use concerns? Except for the input and output facilities, the entire system is three miles underground, maintained by hydrostatic pressure.

It bears repeating that the know-how exists today to bring Atlantic Geothermal’s vision of perpetually sustained clean energy into reality. All it takes is political and economic willpower. What are we waiting for?

by Loren Jenks (lorenjenks@charter.net)

Energy 'Favorability' Score

We think geothermal, using heat energy stored in the deep earth, is a highly favorable form of power generation. Do you agree with our 'favorability' score?

See our comparison of 5 energy systems.

COMMENTARY

By J. David Reynolds

We at Atlantic Geothermal think it is now possible to build the next generation of large-scale geothermal power plants suitable to meet the ever-increasing demand of clean electricity at affordable rates.

The Hoover Dam built after World War II was a project comparable to this new type of truly massive geothermal power production. The project was well worth the initial cost ($165 million in 1935 or about $740 million in today's dollars).

It seems clear that the dam’s value has not gone down over time, if anything it has gone up with increased cost for electricity. The technology then made it possible to build something bigger than a small water wheel on a river. Many of today’s geothermal systems are akin to a small water wheel compared to what could be done using the latest innovations.

GEOTHERMAL FEATURE: New England Is Ready

By Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno

In June 2005, President Bush, made a pitch for building nuclear reactors as an alternative to coal and oil-fired generating facilities. “Nuclear power is one of America's safest sources of energy," said Bush. As usual, the president is off the mark. Even if Bush and company want to ignore that the potential for radiation leaks still exists, and that there are no viable long-term solutions for storing nuclear waste, his own Homeland Security folks have warned that nuclear plants are deemed serious targets for terrorist action. There is a reason that no new nuclear facilities have been constructed since 1979: they are neither safe, green nor reliable.

There is a true green alternative, however, to fossil fuel generating plants (and, of course, nukes). In Northern Europe, and on the West Coast, geothermal power production--which uses heat under the earth’s surface as a natural fuel source--is increasingly proving to be a real solution. California, in fact, is the national leader in the use of geothermal energy for electricity generation. Seven percent of the state's total power production output is geothermally generated. With its 41 working geothermal plants, California accounts for almost 40 percent of the total worldwide geothermal power production. The combined production capacity of approximately 1,900 megawatts of electrical power per hour is enough to supply nearly two million typical households. And new plants are underway.

Up until now, geothermal energy has been thought to be impractical for use in New England. In contrast to the Western United States, where massive amounts of heat lurk near the earth’s surface, in New England the heat is further underground. And yet, in New England, at just a depth of three to five miles, the earth’s temperature reaches about 300 degrees F., well above the temperature needed to boil water. As MIT professor Jefferson Tester notes, geothermal production is possible in New England due to advances in drilling technology that allow for heat extraction of depths up to 6 miles: “All the technology that goes into drilling and completing oil and gas production systems…could in principle be extended to deep heat mining. Hydraulic methods have been the ones that hold the most promise, where you go into the system and you pressurize the rock -- just water pressure.”

While Tester is interested in the math and theory of geothermal generation, Atlantic Geothermal, in Florence, Mass, a small visionary company founded by J. David Reynolds, is actively working to prove that geothermal power is viable for New England. Reynolds, who studied engineering at Northeastern, has devised a system that uses ocean water to power the turbines for making electricity. Reynolds’ plan is ambitious but given today’s drilling technology, far from impossible.

Reynolds calculates that a tunnel 50 feet in diameter, and some 80 to 100 miles long, would be needed to produce enough constant heat to generate 1,600 megawatts of electricity per hour

His plan, simply put, is to bore a tunnel from the ocean inland at a depth of about three or four miles. Geologic maps of coastal New England show that at this depth the temperature reaches at least 300 degrees F. Reynolds calculates that a tunnel 50 feet in diameter, and some 80 to 100 miles long, would be needed to produce enough constant heat to generate 1,600 megawatts of electricity per hour, nearly as much as that produced geothermally in all of California, or at the giant Hoover Dam that currently outputs 1,731 megawatts hourly.

He notes that the technology is here, the water is here, the heat is here. He also likes to point out that 100 years ago the state built a 25-mile long aqueduct from the Quabbin to Boston using mainly manual labor (his system uses robotic drilling equipment). And while he admits that it would be expensive, given the return of free power forever for a utility company, the cost could be absorbed within perhaps a decade. And it’s absolutely clean, absolutely renewable, with no waste by-products. In fact, the only by-product is desalinized water, which could also reduce dependence on the Quabbin and other reservoirs.

If industry buys in to Reynolds’ idea, New England’s dependence on dirty, non-renewable fossil fuels for electricity generation will be a thing of the past.