Australia Pioneers Hot Rock Energy

I came across an article on Reuters today that talks about something interesting going on down under in Australia. In addition to being host to some of the strangest animal species on the planet and more than a few peculiar citizens, it seems that Oz is also a ‘geological freak‘ as Bertus de Graaf puts it. Bertus is the managing director of a company called Geodynamics Ltd, who are about to decide whether they’re going to go ahead with a project employing hot dry rock geothermal energy (HDR).

Hot dry rock energy is apparently one of the great hopes of the renewable energy sector. If it pans out, the technology has the potential to supply larger volumes of power at cheaper prices than wind and solar tech in regions where the required geology exists. Here’s a blurb from the Reuters article at Boston.com that explains how it works…

The key to HDR lies in special hot granite rocks located no more than 3 miles below the earth, whose heat from its core has been trapped beneath layers of insulating rock. Temperatures in excess of 482 degrees Fahrenheit are considered vital.

Water is pumped down through a well at extremely high pressure, to widen existing rock fractures. This increases their capacity to super-heat large volumes of water, which are then transferred to a nearby geothermal power station to heat liquids with a low boiling point to generate steam and then electricity.

Some in the industry in Australia believe that the resources there could provide over 1,000 megawatts of power, not shabby considering that South Australia requires 1,200 megawatts, most of which it currently gets from coal generation.

Here’s the article with further details from today’s Boston.com.