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Forum Index : Off topic archive. : Geothermal Reserves
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wind friend Newbie  Joined: 01/05/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 39 |
Read in the Victorian broadsheet paper recently that there is a massive geothermal reserve that extends basically between Lorne and the Vic/SA border. Given that there are allready 550 Kv transmission lines twixt Portland and the Latrobe Valley would it not make sense for the Govt or any investor to get full size infrastructure up and generating ASAP, instead of the millions 'invested' in green coal. Methinks the geothermal lobby group is not as strong. There is also a huge block of granite in SA some hot enough to send a jet of steam 2.5 Km in to the air. A small pilot plant is up and running there but it is too far from grid connection. At approx 2M $ per Km for transmission lines it seems no one has the heart to speed this project up. Climate change would suggest that we cant afford not to speed up this development. Wind Friend |
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| petanque don Senior Member  Joined: 02/08/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 212 |
Certainly the coal industry in Australia has good lobbyists. With the economic downturn I must admit that the government spending money on infrastructure seems a better way of stimulating the economy than a giveaway to welfare recipients. Give a poor person $1,000.00 and in a year they will probably be no better off. Invest in alternative energy and they may be successful. When economic times come good the infrastructure will still be there. Personally clean coal is just spin from the coal industry because lot of the green house gasses are relapsed from the mining processes rather than the burning of the coal. Carbon capture and storage seems a variation on perpetual motion to me. |
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5036 |
In my home town of Mackay, the biggest employer is the coal mining industry. Mackay is the largest city within 400km, has one of the countries biggest coal ports 20km to its south, and several open cut and underground mines within 300km. While the region was built on farming sugar cane, its the coal industry that has had the biggest impact on the local economy in recent years. The industrial areas are full of large engineering firms, and hundreds of smaller businesses servicing them. The money is unbelievable. Typical wage for a truck driver at the mines is $120,000 per year, and good boiler makers can ask even more. These guys get paid more than doctors and lawyers. If you cant get a job here, you dont want to work. The cost of living is high too. In Mackay a 2 bedroom unit will cost $300 to rent per week, and a 10 acre bare block of land 20 minutes drive from town will cost over $250,000. Anything you buy here cost more, us locals call it "Mackay Tax". Now imagine what would happen if you took away the coal industry. Its just not going to happen. Well, not in the next few decades anyway. Any government would go out of its way to keep this sort of industry going. There are too many companies, small businesses and people that depend on the coal industry. I myself believe this is one reason the Howard government was pushing for Nuclear, we have ample yellow cake, and we are very good at mining stuff, so makes sense, if we cant mine coal then what can we mine? Uranium! If clean coal ( thats a big IF ) can be made to work, then its a big plus for the coal industry and those jobs. Hot rocks? Yes, its an answer to our power needs. I read somewhere hot rock could power Australia's electrical needs indefinitely. But there's not that many jobs in it unfortunately. We dont need to invent a new technology to give clean power, we've already dont that, we do need to find something for hundreds of thousands of workers to do for a living. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| wind friend Newbie Joined: 01/05/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 39 |
And another thing. Some basic phisics. If you have pressure on one side of a barrier/container/rock formation it WILL be only a matter of time before the pressures equalise. This makes my blood boil. and we havent even discussed the energy to liquify, pump and store the CO2. What? So future generations can clean up the mess. Yes its true. We are not making more carbon. Every molecule of carbon that there ever was will be' its just locked up in trees, oil, even the oceans. 
There I feel better now. Wind Friend |
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| wind friend Newbie Joined: 01/05/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 39 |
Glenn Ta for your thoughts. When on a rant Its difficult to see the other side. Your point is valid. Wind Friend |
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| Gizmo Admin Group Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5036 |
Dont get me wrong, I hope to live long enough to see a world where we all drive electric cars, charged every night by our clean energy electricity network. We have the technology to do this now, but economics and social stability mean things like this happen slowly. But it will happen. Many years ago a local farmer would employ teams of men to hand cut the sugar cane, it was hard work but good money for lots of people. That type of job has gone now, replaced my mechanical harvesters. Those men moved on, learned something new, retrained. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| domwild Guru  Joined: 16/12/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 873 |
If I may talk politics amongst friends: The Whitlam government believed correctly that if we start a nuclear industry, then we start a nuclear arms race in SE Asia. The irony is that the first Indonesian reactor is now planned, according to the Greens, in an earthquake-prone area! A similar "joke" happened in my former country of Austria: A just completed nuclear power plant was shut down after citizen's protests and then the Czechs built one right on the Austrian border! The Jan. edition of Silicon Chip contains an article by the Editor-in-Chief lamenting the lack of EVs and nuclear power plants. Whilst other countries produce up to 80% of power via nuclear like France, we are dragging our feet despite huge uranium reserves. Other countries also license EVs in the category of "quadricycle". We do not have such a cat. and the Solar Shop in Oz will have to send the Indian-built Reva car back as such a vehicle would not fulfill our crash test requirements. Any uni or tinkerer these days can build an electric car and the batteries are improving all the time, but there is just not the political will like the Swiss had to have when their watch industry had to change from analogue to digital overnight. Our power stations would not be able to cope at the moment with charging up lots of EVs. Bring back the electric car with its solar-pannelled parking stations (car parked in shade) as seen in the film "Who killed the electric car?". Death to GM! I am feeling much better now! Taxation as a means of achieving prosperity is like a man standing inside a bucket trying to lift himself up. Winston Churchill |
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| domwild Guru Joined: 16/12/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 873 |
Sorry for getting off the geothermal topic. A monster rig is drilling a deep hole somewhere and one hopes the knowledge gained will lead to power generation this way. Kiwi and Icelandic expertise is there to help, although this is a slightly different situation. The gov. is subsidising grid-connected solar to the tune of $7000 with its rebate, effectively partially privatising the fight against global warming; a figure i remember is that if we drive a Prius, it will cost us $200 per ton of carbon. Geothermal will help but the big boost in energy generation will come from nuclear. Sweden has changed its mind and others have followed to build more nuclear plants. The former German Labour/Green coaliton wanted to stop all nuclear plants by 20??, the new government will surely reverse this ruling. Research is concentating also on small one GW room-sized models running on Thorium and spent fuel. Taxation as a means of achieving prosperity is like a man standing inside a bucket trying to lift himself up. Winston Churchill |
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| petanque don Senior Member Joined: 02/08/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 212 |
Isn’t the real cost of nuclear unknown because there is yet to be a successful decommissioning of a nuclear power station? Coal is subsidised in that they pay nothing to emit their pollution but clearly there is some sort of cost to society for this. I will argue that “Clean Coal” has already been very useful to the coal industry because it has delayed the calls for it to become environmentally responsible or some sort of emissions tax. I will make a really radical suggestion that the way to save the planet is education. All western countries are reproducing as such a low rate that they do not have self sustaining populations. Once women become educated many seem prepared to use the technology available to avoid being barefoot and pregnant at home. If there was a tenth (or even 100th) as many people the environmental issues would be reduced. |
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