The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand | The Bullroarer

13 comments on The Bullroarer - Wednesday 20 August 2008

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commuter on August 21, 2008 - 12:35am

A couple of questions re geothermal. From the article...

Geothermal technology works by pumping water deep below the earth's surface, to areas which generate plenty of heat.

The water converts to steam and shoots back up to the surface, where it is used to make electricity.

Aren't Australia's "hot rocks" areas all inconveniently located in the outback? Where there's very little water? Where long-distance transmission lines have to be built?

Barry Goldstein, chairman of the Australian Geothermal Energy Group, said some US scientists believed hot rocks would be cheaper than coal in 10 years' time.

So even the people pushing the scheme admit it'll be expensive. I don't know if he took the (alleged) carbon trading scheme into consideration when comparing it with coal, but a 10 year period before its at parity with coal-generated electricity is hardly what I'd call "relatively quickly". He also says it'll be at least 2015 before there's a commercial generator in operation.

thirra: Just the same,it would be wise to continue increased development of solar thermal/PV,wind and tidal. The greater the spread of generation the more reliable and fail safe the grid will be.

I absolutely agree. If only we really were pursuing increased development of those things. What we're actually doing is making token efforts in those areas while ploughing untold sums of tax money into "clean coal" and (in NSW) selling off the publicly-owned generators to the highest bidder.

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Termoil on August 21, 2008 - 3:06am

I absolutely agree. If only we really were pursuing increased development of those things. What we're actually doing is making token efforts in those areas while ploughing untold sums of tax money into "clean coal" and (in NSW) selling off the publicly-owned generators to the highest bidder.

The reason that "we" are not pursuing renewables as vigourously as you would like is that it doesn't stack up financially in the face of cheap coal. "We" also have a huge investment in coal fired technology that still has plenty of life in it and "we" don't feel inclined to pay more for electricity when we would rather buy a big plasma TV.

"We" really don't care where the power comes from, and we will vote for those who promise the lowest cost power with the best guilt reduction program to mitigate against any nasty side effects.

If the reports of geothermal being able to produce 26,000 times current demand are correct, then things could be much brighter than the doomers predict. Even 10 times would have been impressive. I'll believe it when I see it.

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Cretaceous on August 23, 2008 - 12:50pm

Our Plasma TVs certainly will be much brighter with 26,000 times the power!
;-)

(We may all have to wear welding goggles...!)

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Big Gav on August 21, 2008 - 5:14am

Aren't Australia's "hot rocks" areas all inconveniently located in the outback? Where there's very little water? Where long-distance transmission lines have to be built?

This has been discussed here before at some length :

http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3215

Water - the great artesian basin. In any case, the idea is that it is a closed cycle - little water is lost in the process.

Grid - connect to the South Australian grid and/or the Queensland grid. The distances aren't that large. Sitting on a new interconnector between these 2 NEM regions would be perfect.

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