re: cpmmercial soon SAS, I think geothermal has plenty of...

re: cpmmercial soon SAS, I think geothermal has plenty of upside. Not all are a long way from the grid. My favourite now is PAX. I still see GDY as a market leader (bleeder?) but yes they are a long way from the grid and have encountered all the problems (hydrogen embittlement in the well and other drilling issues) as they are so far ahead of the others (such as PTR and GER). PAX is close to the grid and has a much lower risk HSA project, so my view is we will see baseload, grid connected geothermal power from PAX in the next couple of years.

But, re: GDY, you know what they said in Field of Dreams - build it and they will come! Unlimited clean geothermal baseload power will be very attractive if and when it becomes available.

I remain much more bullish about CNM/CWE though!

I'll have to go and hunt down this weeklend's AFR now. Hope I can still get it.

By the way, if Michael Ottaviano is saying they will need $300 to $400 million for the 50MW commercial demo then $50 million from the REDP plus $250 million from Investec may not be enough, so maybe when the sums are done they will get more than $50 mil from the REDP, or maybe the federal government will tell them to tighten their figures. Who knows? I know if I was handing out $50 to $100 million of taxpayers hard-earned I would be saying to them (amongst all the rest of the contractual negotiations):

1. Tell us exactly where this thing is going to be built (and no changing your mind afterwards!);
2. Tell us exactly how much it will cost to within 10%;
3. Any budget overruns are your problem not the govt's.

P.S. I like IFN as a pure play Aus wind power company but I agree the subsonic sound thing could become an issue.