GEOTHERMAL POWER

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26886, 12 November 1952, Page 10

GEOTHERMAL POWER

SLOW PROGRESS AT WAIRAKEI DELAY IN OBTAINING DRILL COMPONENTS (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, November 11. Progress on the Wairakei geothermal steam project has been slow for some months. The engineers are still awaiting the arrival from America of certain parts for the first of the big new drilling rigs. It will probably be some weeks yet before the first new rig is in operation. Then it will start boring a 10inch hole to see what steam is available below 1500 ft —the lowest level to which the rigs used hitherto have penetrated. The aim is still to secure enough steam to drive a 20,000-kilowatt station. Some of the bores driven by the light rigs will be used for this station, but most of the power will probably come from the deeper bores yet to be drilled. A second heavy drilling rig is being assembled, but this will be regarded as a stand-by plant till investigations have continued for some time. Works Ministry engineers are also busy at Te Teko, where they have put down a bore for the Tasman Pulp and Paper Company. This has been cased to between 700 feet and 800 feet, and is now being driven about 200 feet deeper to allow for the collection of steam. The bore is likely to be blown next week.

Scientists of the Geological Survey have estimated that the “heat flow” from shallow borings at Te Teko is only about one-sixth of that at Wairakei.

The Director of the Geological Survey (Dr. L. I. Grange) said today that geologists and geophysicists would continue their exploratory, work this summer in the They would start soon at Waiotapu and in the hot spring area near Broadlands, which is on the Waikato river, south of Waiotapu. Investigations would also be carried out at the foot of the Paeroa Range and at Orakeikorako, said Dr. Grange. The fact that investigations were to be carried out at these places, he said, did not mean that the steam they found would necessarily be harnessed for power generation. The scientists were concerned chiefly with exploratory work to extend their knowledge of the geological formation of the area.