Strategic interest by pipeline companies could help geothermal in Canada
Terrace, BC, Canada (source: flickr/ Sam Beebe, Ecotrust, creative commons)
Francisco Rojas
8 Apr 2015
Canada might soon see its first geothermal project since "Borealis has found success at Lakelse Lake by creating a three-way joint venture between themselves, the Kitselas First Nation (Kitselas), and the oil pipeline company Enbridge."
In a lengthy and interesting post by Robby O’Brien in Ivey Business Review, some of the usual suspects in geothermal development are discussed but with a particular twist, the daft idea that geothermal energy has still to start a single project in Canada.
As the article explains in detail, the leader worldwide in geothermal power is the US and many of their projects have Canadian business involvement, yet there are no operating geothermal plants in Canada, despite of good potential in their land and good know-how in their companies. Risk in the initial phases of development and the difficulty of securing funds for geothermal projects are once again identified as the main culprits behind this lack of development.
The article also mentions that there are ways around these problems, citing Borealis GeoPower (which was also on the news earlier this week) saying that “Borealis has found success at Lakelse Lake by creating a three-way joint venture between themselves, the Kitselas First Nation (Kitselas), and the oil pipeline company Enbridge. This joint venture, called LL Geothermal, plans to build a 15MW binary cycle power plant south of Terrace, BC.”
When companies with different projects but similar paths work together, synergies can be achieved and in this case, all stakeholders can obtain benefits and further development; even if it is around a oil pipeline.
We recommend you to read the full article on the following link:
