The best and most plentiful source of power on this planet is geological activity. I have mentioned this belief before particularly when talking about what exactly the oil companies will do when the oil runs out.
I have recently become a resident of the State of California so instead of trying to cover national companies, I will focus on companies in the Southwest in addition to ones in New England.
This corporation has a longish history of natural gas plants in Wisconsin and the Southwest and has a truly sustainable geothermal plant in Northern California. It is estimated that the development meets 60 percent of the power demand for the coastal region between the Golden Gate Bridge and the Oregon state line.[1]
The Geysers, a geothermal power field located 72 miles (116 km) north of San Francisco, California, is the largest geothermal development in the world. . The Geysers consists of 22 separate power plants that utilize steam from more than 350 producing wells. The Calpine Corporation operates and owns 19 of the 22 facilities. The other three facilities are operated by the Northern California Power Agency and the Western GeoPower Corporation.
It is currently outputting over 750 MW
And I have a great history of the company from someone who knows them well, both from a financial and personal perspective:
Calpine had a hard time of it
because of the nature of the energy business and its proximity to National
Security. When Enron was overbought and tried to characterize loan
payments to various off-the-books entities such as Chewco and Raptor
(Raptor was also the name of a state of the art jet program at the Defense
Department) as revenue, their competitive entities, the oil companies,
banks, insurers and the U.S. Government, did it in with the Enron Task
Force (ETF is also the acronym for Electronically Traded Funds)–because,
as the saying goes–the public must diversify!). Anyway, the spill-off
from Enron, 911 and the NYSE shut down by Grasso et al., didn’t help
Calpine to say the least. Their funding was cut off and Buffett (yes
Warren) demanded pipeline companies carry more insurance coverage due to
the terrorist threat. It took six years to bankrupt Calpine and in late
2007 they filed Chapter 11. They emerged from bankruptcy with a five
billion dollar loan in 2008. They have various properties generating
geo-thermal power and build gas-fired power plants internationally.
Calpine has several “bases” headquarter loci, among them San Jose
California and Houston Texas and have a large Canadian real estate
portfolio including natural gas related interests.
-John
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Filed under: Business, Energy, Geothermal | Tagged: alternative energy, Business, Companies, Geothermal, Green Jobs, Nateral Gas | 3 Comments »
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