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Geothermal Project in New Zealand Wins Emission Units

September 9, 2005 | 5 Comments

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Auckland, New Zealand [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] The government of New Zealand awarded more than 1.2 million internationally tradable emissions units to Mighty River Power's proposed 70 MW Kawerau geothermal electricity scheme.

"Kyoto and the Projects programme are enabling hundreds of megawatts of generation to be brought forward and millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions to be saved. Our economy, business and the environment all win."

--Pete Hodgson, convenor of the Ministerial Group on Climate Change in New Zealand

Under New Zealand's Projects to Reduce Emissions program, units are awarded to projects that lead to a net reduction in emission that would not otherwise be financially viable.

"Climate change is a direct threat to New Zealand's economy, environment and way of life. Our ratification of the Kyoto Protocol means that the government can award emissions units to projects such as this that would otherwise not be financially viable at this time," said Pete Hodgson, convenor of the Ministerial Group on Climate Change.

Steam for the proposed scheme will be drawn from under land owned by the Putauaki Trust and Norske Skog Tasman under agreements with Mighty River Power. The company's proposal, subject to a resource consents process, calls for the project to come on stream at the end of 2007 with an anticipated life of 25 years.

"Kyoto and the Projects programme are enabling hundreds of megawatts of generation to be brought forward and millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions to be saved. Our economy, business and the environment all win," says Hodgson.

Geothermal Energy

5 Reader Comments

Comment
1 of 5

marshall-ralph-36128

September 9, 2005

Tantalizing story! It's very heartening to those of us in the geothermal project business to see emissions reduction contributing to the cost/benefit calculations for these fine power plants. It'd be great to read more detailed stuff about it.

Comment
2 of 5

nate-bourell-38095

September 11, 2005

Does anyone know how the cost of geothermal compares to the cost of wind and solar? I would be interested to know haw much cheaper, if any, it is. I would assume that it costs less per wat, but there are less places in the world that can use it, but correct me if I'm wrong.

ps, what exactly is in that bill that our dumbass president is the only major world leader who hasn't seigned. What are "internationally tradable emissions units?"

Comment
3 of 5

marshall-ralph-36128

September 12, 2005

The World Bank website (http://www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/energy/geothermal/assessment.htm#economic) has a useful discussion of geothermal project economics, and explains a cents/kWh range that makes good sense. The range is 2.5 cents to 10; most of the plants we see hit the 4.5 to 6 range. Mr. Bourell is, I think, right; a good-quality geothermal resource depends on a fairly improbable set of conditions whose existence underfoot can only be finally determined by expensive drilling. By contrast, wind-farm capital projects are highly predictable, but once built, can offer only relatively poor availability. The AWWA website should offer info on typical cents/kWh ranges for wind projects.

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4 of 5

nate-bourell-38095

September 23, 2005

--continued:

The bigest problem with solar and wind is the fact that they cannot be relyed on to produce energy all the time, so power companies are reluctant to agree to purchase their energy, but geothermal is just about as consistant as coal and gass, so there is no relyability problem.

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nate-bourell-38095

September 23, 2005

-- Marshall Ralph:

The average price for wind per kWh is between 5 and 7 cents (I can't remember the exact cost, but I think it was below 6, and i know it was below 7 and above 5). The typical cost is only slightly more than Coal and natural gas, and it is less than nuclear, and a lot less than solar PV. However, it is misleading when you compare the "typical" cost of renewables (accept bioenergy) to non-renewables because once renewables get started, the only costs are costs of maitnance and managment, whereas fossile feuel and nuclear power plants require the purchase of expensive materials as well. So even though Coal is the typically cheaper than wind and solar, that doesn't mean that it is a beter financial decession to spend your money on a coal plant instead of a wind plant because iafter the initial investment, it is almost pure profit.

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