Reno, Nevada to pursue geothermal companies to set up shop in the city

Alexander Richter 20 May 2009

Regarding to a local article, the city council of Reno “agrees to pursue geothermal companies to make Reno their headquarters for corporate offices and research.

““We have a president who wants to invest in renewables,” (councilman Dave Aiazzi) said. “We have a very powerful senator. And we have geothermal power that could be built in the counties and we get the research and headquarters. “This is a win, win for Nevada.”

The Nevada Legislature is working on a handful of bills, including one from the governor, to provide incentives for new energy development.

“Let me talk to my team,” Chuck Alvey, chief executive officer of the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada, told the council. “Obviously, we are not communicating very well. Let’s see if we can the effort bigger, richer and bolder.” Attracting clean energy companies has been the top priority for his agency, Alvey said.

Developer Nick Pavich spoke of the prospects of attracting geothermal headquarters to office buildings he’s planning for a four-block project called Tesserra between downtown and the University of Nevada campus.

Alvey said he is aware of a few expansion projects regarding geothermal energy production, of 23 energy companies considering moving their offices to Reno and that his agency has 400 more energy company leads to check.

“We are the Saudi Arabia,” Alvey said, when it comes to geothermal power development in Nevada.

Aiazzi said he was disappointed no one tried to Mariah, a Reno developer of wind turbines, to build its first manufacturing plant here. The company started by Mike Hess will be getting several million dollars in incentives to build the plant in Michigan.”

Source: RGJ.com