The exploratory drilling as part of the geothermal project has produced some “good results” Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said on radio on Thursday.
He, however, said the good news came a little too late for him to celebrate by jumping up in a carnival band on Monday, as he had said he would have done.
Gonsalves said on Star FM, his party’s radio station, that he had been informed that by early July there should be enough good results.
“The only snag here is that the good result came about 24, 36 hours too late for me to organise to play mas,” he said.
He said that Ellsworth Dacon, head of the Energy Unit and the Geothermal Project called him at 4 p.m. on Carnival Tuesday to give the good news about the drilling, saying he would forward a report on Wednesday.
“The story is this, to read from the communication from the technical person on the project, it says, ‘We have some good news on the well’ and he proceeds to describe the good news,” Gonsalves said.
“The temperature at the depth of 2,500 metres (8,202 feet) is 250 degrees Celsius plus, which is a great temperature and very importantly, in addition to the temperature — the heat — is that at 2501 metres, they are in the geothermal source itself,” Gonsalves said.
“And they have met the first permeability of the soil and as soon they entered the permeability, it’s 1.5 litres per second, that when they pump the water in that that is the extent which is being lost because the importance for the permeability is the cracks — I am simplifying it; the cracks in the rocks for the geothermal resource for the steam to come up, which would generate the plant for the electricity to result.”
He said that the well would be drilled down to 2,700 or 1,800 metres.
“Then they say in their report that the well which they are drilling, that the geological sequences are as predicted in the reconnaissance survey and that the reconnaissance survey is fairly accurate in relation to what they are finding.
“The expected the source to be deep but it is a little deeper than they had expected but the heat is fine and you are now having permeability. And you are going down further so that — they will continue drilling so that they will get the benefit of the evidence of the greater permeability,” the prime minister said.
“So, from this report, we are on target. Of course, they have more drilling to do,” he added.
Does anyone understand this report.? sounds like a lot of Mombo jombo to me.
Good news for the people of SVG
Are you an expert then Quow?
With every project there is always good and bad news, so what is the bad news?
Who was responsible for awarding the contract and where has the funding all come from?
When you see the CDB problems with a small amount of $1.5 million, we should all be worried about this project.
you sound pretty daft…who focuses on the bad news on such a project? What are you a robot?
It turns out CDB have some funding input into this project. I hope they did there homework and continue to do it as the project goes forward.
Sounds like an interesting and important project once it doesn’t ignite the volcano, so to speak, since there is a global increase in seismic activity that has resulted in so many volcanoes erupting globally. I am not saying that the project will result in La Soufriere erupting, but that there is a need for caution.