This month we have been surprised with several news about Energy Transition in the Canary Islands. And one of them has to do with Lanzarote. The Government of the Canary Islands approves the study of deep geothermal energy in Lanzarote.
This means that for the moment there are two recently created companies, as if invented out of nowhere to apply for the deep geothermal research funds that the Government of Spain has launched within the Next Generation Funds.
Since the sixties this issue has been studied on the island and it is the recurring question of many when seeing the heat in the National Park. But as sometimes things are not as they seem, it turns out that all the studies that have been done on this subject conclude that in Lanzarote there is no deep geothermal energy like Iceland or the Azores, the kind that could supply the island from a power plant.
And in the most recent Energy Transition Plan of the Canary Islands, in its Geothermal section, the Government of the Canary Islands rules out the study or implementation of geothermal energy in Lanzarote because it is not commercially or technologically exploitable. And the Energy Transition Plan of the Canary Islands focuses geothermal research on Gran Canaria, Tenerife and La Palma.
What there is in Lanzarote is low enthalpy geothermal energy, of shallow depth and there are hotel establishments that take advantage of it. Of course the surface heat in the National Park, the geothermal anomalies that we all know.
Then suddenly, as the Central Government offers 15 million euros for geothermal studies in Lanzarote, the clever opportunists have appeared, some companies have been set up in a hurry and they already have permits to carry out samplings of 100 and 200 meters deep in La Geria, and in almost the entire municipality of Yaiza. To stir up the lands, the towns, the vineyards.
We will have to stop these people and have their permits withdrawn.
