Geothermal
According to estimates, hot rocks within five kilometres of the earth’s surface contain enough energy to power Australia for 2.6 million years. If just one per cent of this energy could be tapped, it would be the equivalent of 26,000 times Australia’s annual power consumption.
Source: Geoscience Australia
The Australian Geothermal Energy Association (AGEA) estimates the generation cost of geothermal at A$90-145/MWh in the demonstration stage, falling to A$80-$120/MWh in the commercial stage.
Significant exploration is already underway in Cooper Basin, (borders of SA, NSW and Queensland), Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania.
Over 45 companies have applied for over 400 tenements around Australia and around $1.5 billion worth of exploration work is in progress.
Drilling has begun on only a small number of these projects, but several of these are expected to have geothermal generators working within the next two to five years.
Currently, over 20 countries globally are generating geothermal energy. In 2007 the global capacity of geothermal energy was 9732MW, which produces over 50,000 GWhs every year.
Significant producers include the USA, Iceland, Italy, New Zealand and Japan.