It Always Meant Money How John Grant Financed the First Geothermal Power Project in the Western Hemisphere

摘要

In the early twentieth century, John D. Grant was a rock, gravel, and cement contractor working in Healdsburg, CA, about 60 miles northeast of San Francisco and about 13 miles from today's Geysers Geothermal Field. He grew up in The Geysers area-hunted and fished there-and in the early 1920s, was first to develop its natural steam for electrical-power generation. When reviewed from a financial point of view, the structure of Grant's ground-breaking geothermal project-except for tax issues-appears very similar to that of modern geothermal projects. The financial story begins with a letter written by John Grant, signed "President of The Geysers Development Company," in which he describes the land purchase and summarizes the drilling history of the field's eight wells, from 1921 to 1926-two critical backdrops for the financial events that follow.