Zero Carbon Hot Rock Energy for Tasmania. Maybe.
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 01.15.08
The Australian island state of Tasmania might have its own 5 megawatt ‘hot rock’ geothermal power station with the next five years, if the plans by new energy company KUTh Energy come to fruition. This zero carbon emission technology pumps water 3 to 5 kilometres underground where is t is heated by 'hot rocks' in the earth’s core. Rising to the surface now as steam the water drives turbines to generate electricity, before being sent below for another cycle.
KUTh Energy join a growing band of energy companies looking to exploit this form of 'Enhanced Geothermal Power' (EGP). Aussie Hot Rocks notes that there are now eight such enterprises embarked on a mission to make the concept viable for delivery to the Australian electricity grid.
Apparently KUTh have the largest geothermal exploration lease in Australia, which on a map looks roughly like a third of the state. They plan to spend up to $4 million AUD on exploration over the next few years. If they find an appropriate site it will cost another $35 million to commission a power station that would support the energy needs of about 5,000 people.
And although it's early days they are hopeful that can ultimately produce 200 megawatts of power in the state. (They are also looking for leases in the northern state of Queensland.) ::KUTh Energy, via The Mercury.
See also our three previous stories on hot rocks over the past three years. 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Image found at Research Institute for Sustainable Energy
hey I live in Hobart Tasmania and I must say that we have the most conservative premier (think Governor U.S. peoples!). If this startup needs funding you can bet that it won't come from the *cough* liberal Tasmanian Labor (sic) Party. This is the guy that approved the tas pulp mill despite overwhelming national pressure and has been proven of corruption and golden handshake deals, particularly with our largest old-growth destroyer company Gunns. Good luck and hey, we want electric cars in Australia too!
Wow, could the be the makings of a new 'Journey to the centre of the Earth' and will we get to meet another stoneage Rachel Walsh!!! Drilling down towards the earth's core is scary but makes lots of sense... Theoretically we could all do this for our power.
3 to 5 km is hardly the Earth's "core"; you're not even out of the crust at that depth! lol
But it does get hot enough for geothermal, and that's all that counts :-)
'Journey to the Centre of the Earth' did not have Rachel Walsh in it, or even Raquel Welch. I think you are thinking of '1,000,000 B.C.', a highly historically accurate portrayal of early man's (and women's) struggle to not be eaten by dinosaurs while wearing a fur bikini.
Also, they would be less than 0.1% of the way to the centre of the earth, or about 5 out of 6378 km.
5 km down into the earth does seem quite long distance to me. Project seems good but could run into all sorts of cost overrruns easily.
Another Australian Company, Geodynamics, has just completed drilling a well over 4km deep in the middle of the Australian desert. They are getting ready to fracture the hot rock beneath the surface using high pressure water to create a heat exchanger. They plan on constructing a 1MW power station this year which will provide them with renewable energy while they continue work on a 50MW power station to be completed over the next few years and eventually plan to be producing 500MW capacity by 2016.
exciting stuff! it could potentially provide a viable base load alternative to the many coal fired power stations currently producing most of Australia's electricity.
http://www.geodynamics.com.au/
australia is building a 500 megawatt (half the size of a typical nuke) deep-well geothermal with costs of 4.5 cents/KW (equal to dirty coal) except there are no gov't subsidies.
http://www.geodynamics.com.au/IRM/Company/ShowPage.aspx?CPID=1403
we could easily power the entire western half of the U.S. for only a little more (needs deeper holes)
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/ate/story;jsessionid=45C3B0024F722EFA6C8179486838CBD8?id=48330
the biggest problem is that we need the same drilling resources as does big oil. It is difficult to provide big oil et.al. an incentive to divert their resources away from $100+ bbl oil for 6 penny electricity.
MIT is working on a flame-jet spallation drill tip to essentially 'burn' through granite with relative ease.
Once this happens, i suspect deep-well geothermal will revolutionize the arena of clean electricity.
http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Chemical-Engineering/10-391JSpring-2005/60EEFE8C-1B5E-458C-8577-15D1A6A9D7C4/0/0308s05geotherma.pdf
australia is building a 500 megawatt (half the size of a typical nuke) deep-well geothermal with costs of 4.5 cents/KW (equal to dirty coal) except there are no gov't subsidies.
http://www.geodynamics.com.au/IRM/Company/ShowPage.aspx?CPID=1403
we could easily power the entire western half of the U.S. for only a little more (needs deeper holes)
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/ate/story;jsessionid=45C3B0024F722EFA6C8179486838CBD8?id=48330
the biggest problem is that we need the same drilling resources as does big oil. It is difficult to provide big oil et.al. an incentive to divert their resources away from $100+ bbl oil for 6 penny electricity.
MIT is working on a flame-jet spallation drill tip to essentially 'burn' through granite with relative ease.
Once this happens, i suspect deep-well geothermal will revolutionize the arena of clean electricity.
http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Chemical-Engineering/10-391JSpring-2005/60EEFE8C-1B5E-458C-8577-15D1A6A9D7C4/0/0308s05geotherma.pdf
Prior to the federal election in 2007, the newly elected Labor governemnt promised to grant $50M to assist geothermal companies with drilling costs. (expected to be divided roughly between 5 companies at $10M each). Geodynamics has also acquired its own rig so that it wouldn't have to compete with the oil exploration companies and is looking into acquiring further rigs. It plans on drilling many many holes as it expands its power stations.
Perhaps state governments in the USA could assist geothermal companies with grants for drilling to help them compete with the oil companies and/or acquire their own drilling rigs.
A number of Australian hot rock companies are also involved in several hot rock projects in other parts of the world including Spain, China, and Hungary (in a joint venture with an Icelandic company).