razormd

Raser Technologies: A Short Squeeze in the Making

HAW!!...for "Romns":

"Consequently, just as one offense resulted in condemnation for everyone, so one act of righteousness results in justification and life for everyone."

....unfortunately, RZ's transgressions will condemn only its shareholders and the probability of management executing an act of righteousness is probably about that of seeing a pig flying overhead!...HAW!!!

Raser Technologies: A Short Squeeze in the Making

...HAW!...for "seasoned1" -- UTC Power installed the first purecycle unit at Chena Springs 4 years ago...since then the ONLY other customer has been RZ...now, let's see, four years and nooooobody else in the WORLD but RZ is interested in purecycle plants...I wonnnnder what that could mean?...HAW!

Raser Technologies: A Short Squeeze in the Making

HAW!!...an "anonymous" contributor comes out of nowhere to pump RZ!...I guess desperate situations call for desperate measures, huh!...personally, I smell a short opportunity ripening on the vine -- from a recent PR:

"Once the production wells have been flow tested, independent third party analysis of the resource will be issued, which is one of the final conditions required prior to Merrill Lynch closing the construction funding for the plant under the terms of the Commitment Letter recently announced for the renewable energy project."

...wonder what'll happen if those "independent third party" analyses come back poorly!...and "credentials"???...man... has ZERO "credentials" in geothermal energy -- they blindly jumped in about a year ago when it was becoming obvious they couldn't squeeze much more mileage out of that idiotic "symetron" gizmo...and that "purecycle plant" -- from a Tribune story about RZ:

"...the company warns that the technology it intends to use at the heart of its geothermal energy production activities has a limited operating history and has been deployed only in a limited number of projects."

..."limited number of projects"????...uhhh, ONE project:

www.utcpower.com/fs/co...

...to be EXACT!!...I don't think you should be looking for a short squeeze to salvage your RZ investment anytime soon!...HAW, HAW, HAW!!!

Raser Technologies: The Long Case

Mr. Pluvia seems to think cooling towers in the middle of the desert will solve the problem...I provided a link in a previous post to the Lightning Dock site where apparently towers either didn't work or perhaps weren't cost effective...but you can also check:

www.energy.wsu.edu/doc...

...this talks about the difficulties of cooling at Empire Energy in Nevada...they managed to solve it with construction of cooling towers...but look at the photo provided of those things...how much did it cost to build those?...how much does it cost to run and maintain them?...I have to believe there is a significant amount of change tied up there -- perhaps as much as the geothermal pumps themselves.
...and, in case you don't understand, source water HAS to be pumped back into the ground once the heat is removed in order to not deplete the water table and WHERE that is done is very important...see the Empire link again -- they had to do more drilling to find adequately spaced reinjection sites that wouldn't affect the heat source.

Raser Technologies: The Long Case

Addendum...you brought up Ormat...isn't it interesting that Ormat paid 400-600 dollars an acre for the leases it acquired at the last auction...RZ, on the other hand, paid only FORTY bucks an acre...now did Ormat, with its 30-40 years of experience in geothermal, get suckered?...or did RZ, with its less than 2 years experience, get its money's worth?

Raser Technologies: The Long Case

Quoting from the Lightning Dock link you provided:

"In 1995, three binary power generators were moved
in from Lakeview, Oregon – a 350 kW unit and two 400-kW
units of ORMAT/SPS design (Photo 3). They were run for
two session of approximately eight months each, but cooling
water and the design of the heat exchangers/evaporators
became a problem, thus the generators have been shut down.
Mr. Burgett is attempting to acquire a cooling tower, as the
spray operated cooling ponds are not adequate."

...ultimately, Mr. Burgett ended up just using geothermal to heat his greenhouses...I have to presume cooling towers never worked out since, as of 2006, the power plants are still offline:

www.geo-energy.org/pub...

...hence the importance of cooling: the refrigerant MUST be cooled so that it recondenses back to liquid for recirculation...since the purecycle necessarily uses a low boiling point refrigerant it's going to require significant cooling to transform it back into a liquid...cooling from 200 plus degrees backt to 165 degrees in 112-115 degree desert heat poses quite a challenge...has RZ discovered some new cooling method that they're keeping secret?...I doubt it...and note:

"Chena has been working on characterizing its wells for nearly 2-1/2 years, largely in
anticipation of minimizing the stresses placed on the reservoir due to increased production
necessitated by the power generation project. Initial injection well candidates were chosen
primarily due to their distance from the proposed production area and the natural hot springs.
However, additional testing showed that while these wells are unequivocally linked to the
geothermal system/reservoir, they have low injectivity indexes which make them poor candidates
for injection of any substantial volume of fluid under the low wellhead pressures planned."

...from:

www.yourownpower.com/P...

...TWO and a HALF YEARS to find injection wells...that's just for TWO purecycle plants...and they had to move the first one after a couple of years because it started to affect the geothermal source...RZ claims to be aiming for FORTY FIVE plants yet have given no indication that they are even aware of the need for injection drilling...again, that's just an irrekevant detail to them since they're not really planning on ever selling electricity -- only stock...and they don't need no stinkin' injection wells to sell stock!

Raser Technologies: The Long Case

Addendum to prior post...should say there was NO mention of Amp or geothermal prior to january of 2006...also apologies for odd appearance of the post -- my JAVA appears to be acting up today.

Raser Technologies: The Long Case

Actually, the Amp purchase was announced in January, 2006:

www.rasertech.com/news...

...prior to that there was mention of Amp or geothermal anywhere I
could find...and that deal was highly suspect given that Brent Cook was
Raser's CEO and ALSO was a 2% partner in Amp at the time of the deal:

www.secinfo.com/d2U1m....

...and this was made even more suspect when Amp ended up being sold to
Enel for 70 million -- far less than the 260 million the RZ deal was
going to cost:

www.reuters.com/articl...

www.altenergystocks.co...

....with regards to Chena, indeed the cold water source is quite cold
and Chena DEPENDS on that for function of the purecycle plants through
the Alaska summer...but that's also why the ONLY purecycle geothermal
plant in the world is located in Alaska...for nine months they can use
cold AIR...and two pumps operating for just three months doesn't pose
much environmental risk nor much risk to the water table...and remember
that it's the DIFFERENCE in temperature between the hot source and the
cold source that determines the efficiency of the purecycle plant...there
isn't much cold air in the southwestern desert and I question whether
RZ be able to find a cold source sufficient to operate the purecycle
plants...nothing RZ has published indicates RZ has any interest in these
details...and I believe the reason is that they don't care because they
don't intend to ever actually operate geothermal plants...it's just an
"idea" to pitch to suckers.

Raser Technologies: The Long Case

Although the potential for electric generation is pretty interesting, the potential for Raser to accomplish anything is probably ZERO ...RZ would have you believe that the temperature of the well is the most important detail and they emphasize the purecycle plant's ability to use a lower temperature source...however, read about the Chena Hot Springs plant -- the ONLY purecycle plant currently in operation -- and discover other important facts...FIRST, while hot well temperature is important, also very, VERY important is a cold source -- the efficiency of the purecycle plant DEPENDS on this...in Chena, they use cold air during the winter; during the summer, they DEPEND upon water pumped from a nearby deep well...what is RZ planning to use for a cold source?...cold air in the desert???...doubtful..... cold water well?...presumably -- IF there are any in the desert...SECOND, there has to be a reinjection site for cooled water coming from the plant...that site has to be far enough away from the hot water well that it doesn't cause cooling of the source and far enough from the cold well that it doesn't cause heating of the cold source...Chena had to move their first reinjection site after it caused dilution of the heat source...THIRD, there has to be a place to pump the heated water originally from the cold source...in Chena, they just pump it into a nearby creek...of course, Chena has only TWO purecycle pumps...RZ claims they will have FORTY FIVE pumps at work...what will RZ do with all that water?...dumping it on the ground in the desert seems rather wasteful...FINALLY, it's important to know the fluctuation of the water table through the year -- hitting water in January doesn't mean it's still going to be there in July...also, those forty five pumps sucking water out 24 hours a day from the cold source could significantly affect the water table -- particularly in the desert...now, all of this would be important to RZ and, presumably, would be issues addressed in their press releases...the fact that they don't address those issues leads me to believe they don't really ever plan on ACTUALLY operating geothermal plants to generate electricity...like the infamous "symetron" motor, geothermal is nothing more than a "gimmick" to lure naieve investors into the trap that constitutes the company's true source of income -- selling stock!...the fact is that management didn't even know geothermal existed until a year ago when apparently one of them saw something about tax credits and recognized it as something they could package into an idea they could sell...but I have no doubt geothermal will go the route of the symetron powered snowmobiles, symetron powered Humvees, symetron, and that symetron powered race car they were supposed to have produced a couple of years ago...and I wonder what the next gimmick will be -- a "cold fusion" machine?