March, 2008
March 31, 2008 at 1:23 pm · Filed under Investment Review, infomine
Sierra Geothermal Power Corp (TSX.V:SRA) is a Vancouver-based geothermal company I wanted to start with partly because they’re local, but also because they’re industry leaders in geothermal power. CEO and President Gary Thompson is a P.Geo who is knowledgeable and passionate about the potential for geothermal. I first spoke to Gary Thompson a few months ago when I was writing a research piece about the geothermal industry and I was impressed then.
SRA has leases or options for leases on 17 projects in Nevada and California classified as either Tier 1 or Tier 2 projects. Tier 2 are later stage projects where significant exploration work has been done and they tend to be located close to infrastructure. Tier 1 projects represent less completed exploration work, but possibly greater upside potential. The projects total over 28,000 hectares of land and could potentially generate more than 250 MW of power. Production targets range between 2011 and 2013 on five of SRA’s focus projects.
News releases have recently highlighted Sierra’s Pumpernickel property, which the Great Basin Center for Geothermal Energy at the University of Nevada considers to be one of the top four undeveloped geothermal properties in Nevada. The property is a joint venture with Nevada Geothermal (TSX.V: NGP) where Sierra Geothermal is earning in for 50% of the venture on a schedule of payments in cash, exploration expenditures and stock that will be completed by the middle of December 2008. The joint venture creates risk protection for both companies, while the upside lies in estimates that the property could contain between 20 and 30 MW of power. 30 MW of power is enough to power 24,000 homes.
Sierra Geothermal’s share price as of today was $0.59. They have 67,996,788 shares issued for a market cap of approximately $54 million, about $11 million working captial and no debt.
A 2006 MIT study about geothermal lays out the potential for geothermal as a major renewable energy source. I’ve included the link here. It’s a really long, 372 page pdf document, but well worth taking a look at if you’re interested. Maybe the most exciting part, is that with some major R & D into how to tap the energy from dry rock, there is enough heat in the earth to power our needs for millenia to come. Sounds like the bleeding obvious doesn’t it?
Read the whole (372 page) MIT report on the future of geothermal here.
March 29, 2008 at 12:21 am · Filed under Forum
The forum is under construction, but here’s a taste of what we’ll have:
> a forum for stakeholders in the resource sector from investors to geos to IROs
> customize your own blog with photos, your top stock picks, and more
> create a blog for your company, complete with projects images
> network with other investors, management and analysts
We’re hard at work making this happen. Just a few more days!
March 28, 2008 at 3:09 pm · Filed under Careers
Green Power Investor can help your resource company source the right employees for your needs. From IROs to PhDs, you’ll find the people you need here.
Member companies post job ads for free. Contact us today to find out more.
March 27, 2008 at 12:31 pm · Filed under Investment Review
A really important quote: “A 50 MW wind energy facility can be constructed within six to 12 months of its start date, whereas hydro, gas, nuclear or coal facilities can take several years to complete.”
That’s from Creststreet Power & Income Fund’s website. It underscores the very reason we conceived of MiningandMoney.com: That mining and energy largely exist as an archaic industry that has changed little in its thinking in hundreds (if not thousands) of years.
We’ve turned to “green” resource companies – and by that we mean every combination of molecules from aluminum to zinc and all the gasses, solids and fluids in between – I say we’ve turned to “green resource companies because it’s the only sensible investment investors can make in today’s imperative times. Green stands for every company that incorporates the environment into its tactics and strategies, but green is also a word that conjures growth and profit. All three fit together nicely and spell out a future we’re glad to be a part of.
To turn that diatribe to the negative: There are obviously better ways to heat our homes and buckle our belts than by expending illogical ratios of oil, energy, CO2 and so on. People are doing it all around the world. Many of these people run growing public companies, excellent investments in many cases. We’re here to investigate, do due diligence and profit from those forward thinking enterprises.
We’re looking for smarter solutions to invest in, not problems.
Next entry: A review of Creststreet Power & Income Fund (TSX: CRS.UN)
March 26, 2008 at 3:05 pm · Filed under Market Watch
Juan Enriquez gave a talk at TED late last year that I really wanted to share with all of you. Enriquez is a leading world authority on life sciences and how they are expected to change our lives as we know them. In this talk he explains what bioenergy actually is and how we could use it to create energy. He suggests that we’ve been using brute force to create energy and ruining the environment in the process. Using biology to harness the energy in hydrocarbons, he persuasively argues, could revolutionize the energy industry and the economy. He says it best. Check it out!
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