Vulcan Power Company - Steam Properties

Vulcan projects comprise over 170,000 acres of private and federal geothermal leases and lease applications, which is one of the largest geothermal property portfolios in the United States. These geothermal properties consist of over 140,000 acres in the Basin and Range Geologic Province and nearly 20,000 acres of Volcano properties.

The American geothermal industry produces power from three distinct types of geothermal resources: the Geysers “dry steam” reservoir in northern California; the “wet steam” resources in the Basin and Range Geologic Provence of northern Nevada, eastern California and Utah; and the “high brine content” resources of the Imperial Valley in southern California.

Around the world the large majority of geothermal power supplies tens of millions of people and is produced from volcano systems along the Pacific “Ring of Fire” from Japan and The Philippines and the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia to Indonesia to the volcanoes of Italy and Iceland. For more information about geothermal around the world refer to the Links section of the Vulcan website.

Vulcan is focused on developing high quality “wet steam” resources in what its team considers the risk and cost optimized sweet spot of geothermal development. This process employs steam flash plants supplied from moderate depth and moderate risk production wells at temperatures from about 350° F to 450° F in the Basin and Range Provence.

The company plans to expand total geothermal industry production in Nevada from about 200 MW by at least an additional 270 MW to service executed Vulcan utility contracts to be supplied from Nevada.

Despite being an industry born in volcanic regimes of Italy 100 years ago and which is still largely a volcano power source worldwide, geothermal in the U.S. is not producing from what are considered the more traditional volcano steam resource types.

However, based substantially on technology transfer from United States geophysical scientists and service companies to Japan and elsewhere, advanced technology over the past 20 years for example built the Japanese geothermal industry from zero to about 600 MW virtually all produced from volcano resources. Dr. Jim Combs PhD MIT, Vulcan's Chief Scientist, was a key scientist leading the technology exchange which basically created the Japanese industry.

The Vulcan team is employing advanced stage American geological and geophysical technology to develop geothermal under its large properties and a project under massive hot young volcanic systems in the American West along the North American edge of the circum Pacific Ring of Fire.

This property section first describes Vulcan Basin and Range property leases and then Vulcan Volcano property leases. Dr. Combs estimated the company Basin and Range properties contain sufficient natural steam fuel to supply 620 MW to 997 MW. The independent engineer further estimated the Volcano properties to contain over 150 MW to 335 MW of steam fuel for 30 years.

Other Geothermal Resource Types

The dry steamfield in the Geysers in northern California was the first resource to be developed for power in the United States with commercial sized operations in 1960. The resource currently produces about 1,000 MW and it utilizes tertiary quality grey water injection to augment the natural dry steam in the ground with surface water.

Vulcan is not involved in the Geysers dry steamfield project which resource type is thus far limited in North America to this one instance of dry steam produced from a large fractured granite reservoir.

The high brine content resources in the Imperial Valley in California are further described below. Many projects there require construction of a chemical treatment plant on the front end of a power plant to clean up the brine sufficiently to produce electric power. The hot brines fill sediment deposited by the Colorado River in a massive sunken “rift zone” valley on the north end of the rift zone physically separating Baja California from Mexico which is now filled by the Sea of Cortez.

Interestingly, one theory is that the river sediments in the Imperial Valley are being filled by “black smokers” salt and metals laden hot brines of the type emitted along the tectonic plates mid-ocean ridges. The brines in the Imperial Valley typically are in the range of 200,000 parts per million (ppm) salts and chemicals to 270,000 ppm.

This geologically active zone is similar to two other rift zones where tectonic plate forces come ashore in the Great Rift Valley of northeast Africa and where the mid Atlantic rift zone comes ashore in Iceland. The Imperial Valley is producing several hundred megawatts of geothermal power. Due to complex corrosive chemistry effects and equipment costs at most sites there Vulcan is not involved in development in the Imperial Valley.

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