Forbes has a post on some of Hot Dry Rocks' marketing for Australian geothermal energy- Australia Could Be A Geothermal Powerhouse.
Last week, geothermal consulting company Hot Dry Rocks released a geothermal map of Australia that shows the country’s incredible potential for tapping its geothermal energy supplies. The map, which was developed in conjunction with Google.org, shows that if Australia were to only use 2% of its geothermal potential using today’s technology, it could produce 395,092 MW – about ten times more than Australia’s total coal and gas production.One of a major benefits for using geothermal energy in Australia is that, as you can see from the map above, it’s generally available everywhere. Australia has some of the highest temperatures in its known near-surface rocks anywhere in the world and its geothermal potential is distributed over the entire country.“This is clean, renewable energy that is realistically accessible today with existing drilling and power conversion technologies,” HDR’s Managing Director Graeme Beardsmore said. “Not only that, EGS has the potential to provide base load power; it is one of the most abundant sources of renewable energy available and is more than sufficient to replace current coal and gas power supply.”
The ACT could one day generate its own power with up to 430 megawatts of renewable geothermal energy, according to new data issued today.Australian geothermal energy consultancy Hot Dry Rocks has released figures showing that the rocks up to 5km beneath Australia's surface store enough heat to theoretically provide 85 million megawatts, equivalent to the country's current energy needs for the next 50,000 years.In the ACT, 430 megawatts could be produced by extracting 20 per cent of the estimated heat energy over the next 30 years.
The Climate Spectator has a rather more detailed take on the story - Can geothermal cut it in Australia?.
In the geothermal industry, they are fond of painting the big picture. For years, the selling point of the technology was that if just 1 per cent of the superheated rocks that lay deep under the surface in Australia could be exploited, then it could power the country for 26,000 years.That estimate was based on the assumption that the industry could extract every last drop of heat, which of course would never happen. It’s like solar’s claim that the sun could power Australia’s needs 10,000 times over if all its radiation could be harnessed, or coal that it could continue to power the world for another 250 years. It’s either technically not feasible, or not particularly desirable.The latest geothermal industry estimates – a collaboration between consulting group Hot Dry Rocks and Google – try to inject a little more reality to the forecasts, but it is still comes up with a considerable number: if just 2 per cent of Australia’s technically-accessible hot dry rock potential is tapped, this would generate capacity of 395,092 MW of clean, emissions-free, renewable electricity, or almost 10 times that of the current capacity of carbon-emitting coal and gas.
