The geology part is pretty boring, it's the development aspect of the project that has Kirsten Marcia really excited.
Marcia (nee Muir), a former Estevanite who now resides in Saskatoon, is a professional geologist who left a recent assignment of looking for diamonds north of Prince Albert to embrace a huge opportunity to bring geothermal energy into the provincial power grid on a commercial scale within a couple of years.
Marcia, president and CEO of Deep Earth Energy Production Corp. (DEEP), was in Estevan Sunday and Monday, meeting with interested investors and developers as well as Estevan city council, talking about the plan that is evolving to bring five megawatts of commercial power into production using the deeper zone of the Williston Basin formation near the Rafferty reservoir.
She said the geology that surrounds the project checks in as boring since the area has already been explored to extremes.
"With 35,000 oil wells drilled, there isn't much that isn't already known about what's down there," Marcia said with a laugh. That means she can apply some accuracy to forecasts when it comes to the newness of geothermal technology and southeast Saskatchewan.
"It's for long-term, base-load power supply and using this new resource, that's when I become passionate about it. Unlike solar or wind that are intermittent, geothermal provides base load power like hydro, coal and natural gas," she said.
A five megawatt production plant in the first phase of the project would be enough to power 5,000 homes.
Although the original payback is expected to be between six and eight years, the actual payback will go on for years since geothermal is a renewable resource. The power can run forever, Marcia said.
DEEP will be drawing from a 3,000 metre (three kilometre) deep well. In fact there will be six wells drilled in total for the first phase, and the company already has an agreement signed to use some non-oil bearing land from PetroBakken (nine sections) that includes a drilling agreement that will reduce their costs by 30 per cent.
The temperatures have been tested in the zones that will be used and future expansion can be accommodated without a major geological revisit.
DEEP will drill into the aquifer and draw the hot water up near the surface and it will turn a turbine to produce electricity using geothermal technology.
DEEP won the SaskPower Green Options Partners Program contest to provide green renewable energy for Saskatchewan using new technology. That will allow them to provide the power to the SaskPower grid by 2013.
"It's coincidence, I'm from Estevan, the Williston Basin is here, SaskPower is here. It's coming together," Marcia added, before addressing about 20 interested people on Sunday who had responded to an invitation to hear more about the proposal from an investment standpoint. She was slated to provide another outlook seminar on Monday at noon before speaking with council members that evening.
The subsurface and surface rights have been secured, the Green Options partnership with SaskPower is in place and Borealis GeoPower has been contracted to provide third-party consultative advice. Their initial report came back as very positive, noting that a series of small (five megawatt) power stations are viable from an investment and production perspective.
Marcia said unlike other power plants, the geothermal units will stand on the prairie landscapes like tiny little quonset huts when they get into production, thereby leaving a miniscule environmental footprint. Up to 50 megawatts could be generated without any major new exploration once the first plant gets underway.
"The first project is expected to cost around $5 million. The total project to completion will be around $25 to $30 million," Marcia said.
Original costs are averaged out over years to the point that geothermal power will be price competitive with any other source including gas and coal and definitely more cost effective when compared with the less reliable solar and wind generating units.
"Geothermal generates power 365 days a year, not just when the sun shines or the wind blows," she said.
Emissions are next to nil.
When construction gets underway, Marcia said there will be between 40 and 50 workers on the job. Once the plant is operational, since it is a remote concept, the plant will require only one or two people to monitor and control.
"It's my challenge now to get it into the system in a timely manner. Once we get it fed into SaskPower, we have a 20-year agreement to provide power and we're surrounded by a great area, it's a great spot. The Williston Basin's sedimentary deep zone is right here," she added. "We don't have to go hunting for the best zone. The test results from 35,000 wells tells us those things and it's publicly available data we're using. It's recognizing the value of the water, the heat. And cost recovery is decent, plus we've applied for federal funding support which will be great if we get it, but for now, we're basing our financial model on pure equity funding.
"Let's face it. This is the kind of stuff Estevan does best. I figure we can kick off a $5 million project using the Williston Basin zone that's between Torquay and Midale. We're going down vertically and if we find a sweet spot, we can go horizontally if need be," Marcia said, referring to the drilling models that will be used.
"This is a non-depletable resource we have here with the smallest environmental footprint you can imagine. So we're approaching investors for a flow through or hard dollar investment, whatever they want to use. The non flow-through shares will come with a half-warrant per share. That's what we're using as our financing model," Marcia said.
"It's pretty exciting. It's a happy coincidence that this is my hometown," she said in conclusion.
Exciting, except of course, for that boring geological data.
