DOE - Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced a conditional commitment to provide a partial guarantee for a $98.5 million loan by John Hancock Financial Services to the Nevada Geothermal Power Company (NGP) for a 49.5 megawatt geothermal project in Humboldt County in northwestern Nevada.
The NGP Blue Mountain ("Blue Mountain") project consists of a geothermal well field, fluid collection, and injection systems that enable energy to be extracted from rock and fluid below the Earth's surface, and a power plant that converts geothermal energy into electricity. The project has a 20-year power purchase agreement to sell electricity and renewable energy credits to Nevada Power Company.
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Just $3.3 billion* in R&D spending could propel geothermal energy to be the cheapest energy technology, even beating fossil fuels on a cost-per-kilowatt-hour basis, according to a new study. *The study included data from the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory on the cost per kilowatt-hour at active power generation projects in 2005:
Haase - "History, learn from it or be become it"
- Geothermal, $0.031 to $0.08
- Wind, $0.043 to $0.055
- Biomass, $0.066 to $0.08
- Solar, $0.11 to $0.31
- Hydroelectric, $0.006
- Coal $0.021
- Nuclear, $0.022
