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Cornwall project pushes for government and investor support

Cornwall project pushes for government and investor support Eden Project, website snapshot
Alexander Richter 23 Jul 2012

The consortium of EGS Energy Limited and the Eden project is in government and investor discussions to drive its project forward with a possible drilling start in Q1 2013.

The partnership of EGS Energy Limited and the Eden Project in the UK promotes the potential geothermal energy could play for the region and asks for investment to drive the industry forward in the UK.

The group is expecting to start drilling early next year and asks the government and outside investors to back the GBP 35 million ($55 million) project.

The granite backbone of Cornwall in England could be a used to create a network of geothermal plants and could produce about one fifth of the UK energy need, so a recent report by consultancy SKM.

The region has already given consent for two bore holes of a depth of up to 4.8 km (3 miles) at the Bodelva site at the Eden project, near St. Austell, Cornwall.

The EGS project expects then to pump down cold water to be heated up at this depth to around 240 degrees Celsius and be used for driving a turbine, producing electricity.

The consortium of EGS Energy and the Eden project is currently negotiating with the government, as well as several equity partners and a major bank to finance the project.

If funding could be secured soon, drilling could start in the first quarter of 2013.

In the 1970s there has already been research on EGS development in the region, with that knowledge having been applied in a European project in France and the first geothermal plant in the South of Germany.

Source: This is Cornwall