home geothermal energy – Magma Energy reports dramatic growth, new geothermal explorations in Q1 – Yahoo! Canada News
Magma Energy reports dramatic growth, new geothermal explorations in Q1 - Yahoo! Canada News
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Mon Nov 16, 5:32 PM
By The Canadian Press
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VANCOUVER, B.C. - Magma Energy Corp. (TSX:MXY) says it is gradually acquiring shares in Iceland's largest private geothermal power company and eventually hopes to become half-owner of the venture.
The investment in HS Orka was one of several initiatives discussed Monday by Magma's chairman and chief executive Ross Beaty in a conference call to discuss Magma's fiscal first-quarter results.
Despite a loss of nearly US$2.7 million or one cent a share in the three-months ended Sept. 30, Beaty called it a "pretty good quarter" for Magma.
During the same period last year, the Vancouver-based thermal energy producer reported a loss of $829,860, also one cent a share.
Beaty said Magma expects to acquire 8.6 per cent of HS Orca stock later this week, about two months later than expected.
Magma plans to close the purchase of an additional 32 per cent of the Icelandic company in late November and three per cent more in March, bringing its total holdings to some 43 per cent.
Magma has expanded rapidly since its initial public offering in July, including projects in Nevada and Latin America.
"Our Nevada and international exploration efforts are gearing up quickly, and we have already announced a new 140-megawatt geothermal resource discovery at our Maule project in Chile," he said. "This is a major discovery, but we think it will get much bigger with further exploration."
The company developed seven explorations in Nevada during the period and opened two new projects in Nicaragua just after it ended.
"The real highlight of our quarter, however, was our completion of a successful IPO on July 7th, which raised $88 million net of cost," Beaty said.
"This gives us the financial horsepower to aggressively explore and develop the most promising of our properties for the next couple of years."
Since Magma went public, geothermal resources have increased from 199-megawatts to 436-megawatts, nearly 150 per cent, Beaty said.
"This is a pretty good start on our mission to build a great global geothermal power company by successful exploration, production and acquisition," he added.
Revenues from energy sales were just over $1 million in the quarter, the first three-month period of the energy producer's 2010 fiscal year, the company reported. Magma generated no operating revenue for the same period a year earlier.
Magma Energy has one operating power generation plant, the Soda Lake operation in Nevada, and an extensive portfolio of exploration properties throughout the western United States and Latin America.
"We now hold 161,000 hectares, or just over 400,000 acres, of geothermal rights at 27 properties in five countries," Beaty said.
"But of course its quality not quantity that counts and our big focus in 2010 will be to explore these holdings aggressively...and drop the lowest quality projects to focus on the best."
Magma shares rose two cents to close at $1.84 in trading Monday on the Toronto Stock Exchange, aA gain of 1.1 per cent
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The Myth Of The Oil Crisis
There are some things most people today know about oil.
* Global oil output is going to plummet
* Prices are going to rise forever
* The transition to alternative energy will be long and painful
* There will be more ‘oil wars’ and industrial civilization may collapse
* Oil and gas will cause catastrophic climate change
The problem is that these ideas are wrong. Oil ‘ran out’ first in 1885, and perhaps another five times since then. Every time, new finds, new technologies and changes in oil use confounded the pessimists.
Oil prices above $140 per barrel seem to encourage the growing belief that we are approaching ‘peak oil’ and that supply cannot increase any more. But what has changed since 1998 when oil cost $10 a barrel? Just that a long period of under-investment in new energy supplies collided with rapid growth in Asia (and, easily forgotten, the USA). It takes years to turn the energy super-tanker around, to develop new oil fields, even though there is plenty in the ground.
There is a real debate over how much oil the world holds. But ideas of a vast conspiracy involving some mix of OPEC, the US government and ‘Big Oil’ to exaggerate oil reserves are fantasy. Official figures are, if anything, somewhat under-stated, and, as recent massive finds in deep water offshore Brazil show, new exploration frontiers still exist. Out-dated environmental moratoria in the USA could be lifted to yield more domestic hydrocarbons. New technologies continue to wring more out of old fields. Most importantly, ‘unconventional’ oil sources hold many times the volumes of conventional oil - from the famous Albertan ‘oil sands’, to fuels from natural gas, coal and plants, to ‘cooking’ oil out of shales that hold trillions of barrels in the USA alone.
So there is no need to fight ‘resource wars’ to ‘secure’ oil. Invading oil-rich countries is vastly expensive and makes oil supplies less, not more, secure. The Middle East is a growing part of the world economy, not a nest of terrorists, desperate to cut off oil supplies in order to bankrupt themselves and invite vengeance. Propping up dictators in return for energy ‘favours’ is not a valid long-term strategy either. The West, China, India and the oil exporters will gain far more from co-operating on energy, than following
1000
the mirage of ‘energy independence’.
Should ‘we’ invest massively to move to a renewable energy system? Well, we already are -- $100 billion in 2006 alone, and not only in the West, but in China, India, Brazil and other rising powers. It’s hard to grow renewable energy any faster. Renewables are clearly a key part of powering the future, and of fighting global warming, but oil (and gas, and coal) are going to be the main sources of energy for decades to come. Capturing the carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, and storing it underground, is entirely practical and should be a major part of climate change policy. renewable energy and hydrocarbons are not enemies -- we need to use them both.
So the ‘end of oil’ is not imminent -- neither is the collapse of industrial civilization. Even if oil supplies started declining, we could fill the gap with improved efficiency and new energy sources. It’s neither necessary nor desirable for us to go back to some ‘Year Zero’ of pre-modern society. Oil will never ‘run out’; it will be replaced, probably decades hence, by something better. That is the best and most positive reply to fears about the ‘end of oil’.
©2008 Robin M. Mills
Author Bio
Robin M. Mills is an oil industry professional with a background in both geology and economics. Currently, he is Senior Evaluation Manager for Dubai Energy. Previously, he worked for Shell. Mills is a member of the International Association for Energy Economics and Association of International Petroleum Negotiators. He holds a Master's Degree in Geological Sciences from Cambridge University. His book, The Myth of the Oil Crisis: Overcoming the Challenges of Depletion, Geopolitics, and Global Warning, is available August 2008 from Praeger Publishers.
By: Robin M. Mills
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
www.praeger.com/catalog/B36498.aspx
ISBN: 0-313-36498-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-36498-3
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Basta Ya, Gloria!
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