Raser is committed to bringing important new electric motor and power generation technologies to market through licensing and royalty arrangements with companies in the transportation, industrial and power generation markets. These markets form the three pillars of our strategic plan to grow Raser.

We expect this transaction to provide a stable platform of cash flow and revenue that will fuel Raser’s long-term growth strategy.

—Brent Cook, Raser CEO

Amp stockholders will receive up to 10 million shares of Raser common stock and approximately $38 million in cash. Raser will also assume liabilities and approximately $50 million in debt, which the company intends to retire within 12 months of closing.

Upon the close of the transaction, Amp stockholders will own approximately 16% of the combined company on a fully diluted basis. Raser expects this transaction to be accretive to earnings per share upon completion of the geothermal energy sales contract monetization transactions.

Geothermal Generation. There are three proven, basic methods to using hot subsurface fluids and/or vapors to generate power via turbines:

• Dry steam, which directly uses geothermal steam to turn turbines. Large reservoirs of dry steam suitable for commercial exploitation are relatively rare. Dry steam plants are simple and typically inexpensive to construct, but can be costly to operate and sustain.

• Flash Steam, which pulls deep, high-pressure hot water (typically >360º F) into lower pressure tanks on the surface and use the resulting flashed steam to drive the turbines. Any remaining, residual brine from the separation tank is returned to the reservoir via re-injection wells. In some cases, the residual water can be flashed again to gain more power production. Or the residual heat can be converted in a binary cycle to, again, generate more power. Flash Steam is the most widely employed method.

• Binary Cycle, which passes moderately hot geothermal water (approximately 200º to 360º F) by a secondary fluid (the “working fluid”) with a much lower boiling point than water via a heat exchanger, causing the secondary fluid to flash to vapor, which then drives the turbines. After the heat exchange process, the water is re-injected into the reservoir. The primary advantage of the binary method is its ability to efficiently convert more commonly found low temperature water resources into power though the use of working fluids that have a low boiling point.

According to Amp, geothermal plant efficiency has peaked at about 37% without resorting to exotic materials and complex processes, although the theoretical efficiency limit remains much higher, at about 65%.

Amp Resources’s K-Cycle technology is designed to enhance significantly the efficiency and productivity of the flash and binary methods.

Russian-born scientist Alex Kalina invented the process (the K-Cycle) of using water and ammonia mixtures of varying proportions as the working fluid to drive steam turbines and other machinery. By controlling the composition of the new working fluid in different parts of the system, more electricity-producing heat can be recovered at each step in the cycle.

The K-Cycle delivers more power for the same amount of input heat, and it does so regardless of the thermal energy source. By improving power plant efficiency, the K-Cycle cuts the amount of geothermal fluid or industrial waste heat needed to generate electricity, reducing cost and emissions.

Amp Resources claims that its K-Cycle technology can enable binary geothermal generation facilities make up to 40% more power than traditional technologies for the same hardware costs.

Coupled with Amp’s heat transfer technology, the Symetron value proposition is strong for both traditional, large power plants as well as for smaller power plants where the parasitic load is disproportionate to the generating capacity.

—Brent Cook

According to the Department of Energy, approximately 23% of total U.S. electric generating capacity is provided by more than 14,000 small plants with capacities of 100 megawatts or less.

Amp is developing power plants in 15 and 30 megawatt sizes. The projects currently under development have a total capacity of approximately 105 megawatts.

Resources:

• EERE Geothermal Technologies Program

• Amp Resources: Geothermal

• Geothermal Resources Council

• CalEnergy: Virtual Tour of a Geothermal Plant