Paris!

Hello everyone. I have safely arrived in Paris and completed my first meeting. France is a bit interesting because people in the Ministry of Energy are very difficult to contact. But I was assured today by Dr. Ungermach, who is a senior engineer in a geothermal consulting business, that I am already set up to speak to the very best, Dr. Genter, who manages the project at Soultz and who is incidentally my very first contact. Dr. Ungermach was extremely nice. The company was a bit out of the way, but it was quite a nice train ride and Dr. Ungermach was kind enough to pick me up at the station.

We discussed about some of the challenges that EGS and geothermal in general faces in the EU. In particular, he expressed that more consistent policy needs to be formed throughout all the countries, and since geothermal heat is considered a mineral, the mining policies need to be amended. As it is, it is often difficult to obtain the licenses or permits for land for large-scale geothermal projects. We also discussed quite a bit about current geothermal utilization in France, as well as the current incentive market here. The feed-in tariff for geothermal is likely to rise to about $.20 per kW, which would make it much more competitive.

I got to see Sam yesterday, which is so funny because I haven't seen her in so long and when I finally did, it was in a foreign country! It was really good to catch up with her a bit. I haven't been able to see much of Paris yet, but will most likely do a bit of sight seeing tomorrow, and will hopefully meet up with Frank to tour me around a bit.

Other than that, I'm pretty tired. I think all this traveling and moving around is taking a lot out of me, but I want to take advantage of everywhere I go so I try to keep pretty busy. Well, I had better get going. Good night!