CleanGoal Helping Aqua Terra Dig Up Geothermal Funding

By Sari Krieger

8/6/2009 – Financial consulting company CleanGoal Environmental LLC is working to help new clean technology company Aqua Terra Power Corp. obtain $130 million in debt and equity that it needs to start its first few projects.

Vancouver-based Aqua Terra is only a year old, but it is close to signing a contract with unnamed investors for this money, which will be used to drill wells on two geothermal projects in British Columbia, said Rod Bartlett, president and chief executive of Aqua Terra, in an interview with Clean Technology Insight.

Bartlett said he expects to have a contract signed around the third week of August. He said he couldn't name any of the potential investors yet. Whistler, B.C.-based CleanGoal has been facilitating the financial deal.

"We have very serious funding candidates and are just going through the dance on the paperwork," Bartlett said.

Asked why CleanGoal chose to help this pre-revenue stage clean-technology startup, President Ken Lelek said of Bartlett: "I have worked with him in the past and he's a very solid individual, and any project he does I will join him."

Lelek said he has worked with Bartlett before on a company, S2C Global Systems Inc., which is listed on the Bulletin Board and ships water from Alaska to arid regions like Saudi Arabia, California and Mexico.

Lelek and his partner at CleanGoal Patrick Smyth have spent the past few decades helping set up companies. Lelek has been involved in the founding of various companies, including Square One Solar Corp., 3D Algae and Naturally Advanced Technologies Inc., a clothing company that is listed on the Bulletin Board and the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Aqua Terra tapped John Meech and Mory Ghomshei to bring in extensive experience. Meech has industrial and academic experience in the mining and minerals industries extending more than 40 years, and Ghomshei has participated in exploration and development of geothermal fields around the world. Ghomshei also designed and developed many medium and low-grade geothermal systems for hospitals, municipal buildings and greenhouses.

Lelek said in an interview that once Aqua Terra starts on its first few projects, it can expand to develop various others in Western Canada and down into the Western U.S. He said financing for Aqua's projects shouldn't be a problem, even in this down market, because banks want to fund clean-technology projects.

"The Europeans, they have been doing [geothermal] for years, so when we ask for a huge amount of money to get these projects going, it's not a problem," Lelek said. "I believe all these clean energy projects are going to save the stock market just like the Internet [did] in the mid ‘90s, it revived the stock market."

Between its two initial geothermal projects in British Columbia, Bartlett said Aqua Terra expects to build about 165 megawatts within the next three years. The two projects will cost a total of $550 million, he said, but the initial money it is raising now will just need to pay for drilling wells. After the wells are completed, a power-purchase agreement can be obtained to pay for plant construction, he said.

Bartlett said the company will also look to build other clean technology operations, such as wind and solar.

http://www.cleangoal.com