Mother Earth Lets Off Steam From Geodynamics' Hot Rocks

Sydney, May 1, 2005 (ABN Newswire) - A new clean and green energy source is being harnessed in remote Central Australia which could be the answer to the country’s future electricity needs. Australian company Geodynamics believes it can generate thousands of megawatts each year from hot granite rocks buried deep underground.

This is the sound of mother earth letting off steam. The noisy flow of steam demonstrates the incredible natural power of the underground resource, and at 250 degrees Celsius, the buried hot rocks have the potential to produce some of the world’s cleanest electricity.

Bertus de Graaf CEO We have now a demonstration that we can extract heat from the earth. We see that by virtue of the steam. We know that Habanero One and Habanero Two can talk together underground – there’s connection between the two wells. That combined with the scope of the resource we know is here is quite significant. This shows that we can have potentially here a very large power generation project, zero emission, on the scale of coal-fired power stations.

Voiceover Geodynamics’ hot fractured rocks project is located near Innaminka in South Australia, at one of the hottest non-volcanic spots on earth. It’s a known geothermal resource, with thermal energy in the first 1,000 metres of hot rocks producing the equivalent of 50 billion barrels of oil, or nearly twice the entire oil reserves of the USA.

Dr. Doone Wyborn Director Where we’ve come now is just amazing. We’ve actually got a resource here that’s far in excess of what we expected. The underground resource has turned out to be much better than we could even imagine.

Voiceover Two wells have been drilled into 350 million year old granite rocks to access the heat held in the hot rocks. It’s an ancient underground system, which is poised to produce a modern energy source.

Water is pumped nearly five kilometers down one of Australia’s deepest wells, Habanero One, and forced under pressure through the underground heat exchanger, which was created by opening up existing cracks in the granite. This underground heat exchanger had a number of important geological aspects which make it special. It is horizontal, and it is huge. As the water flows through the hot rocks, it heats up and is returned to the surface through the production well, Habanero Two. The heat is used to generate power through a standard geothermal power plant. The scope for providing baseload power on a major scale is enormous.

Dr. Doone Wyborn Director The resource potential in this region, in this thousand square kilometer area, to be enough electricity produced to provide all of Australia’s electricity needs at current consumption rates for 70 years.

Voiceover Geodynamics has attracted some big hitters amongst its shareholders, including top ASX companies Woodside Petroleum and Origin Energy, which together hold about 30 percent of the company. Origin Energy has entered into an agreement which allows them to take 50 percent of the power which is produced in a future scale-up 200 megawatt power plant.

Andrew Stock Origin Energy This is very exciting, what I’ve seen today. The size of the resource, we believe, is huge, and the question is how you economically extract it. I think we’ve seen very encouraging signs today that it can be extracted from an engineering point of view. The next challenge is to prove the economics.

Voiceover Geodynamics is now working through a programme to test the underground reservoir, after which the company will have enough data to prove up the economics and estimate a new geothermal reserve. Enhancement of the reservoir during the last quarter has led to the development of a second parallel reservoir, as well as a major enlargement of the original reservoir. The enhancement work has increased the reservoir by a massive 52 percent.

Bertus de Graaf CEO The application here is really in the thousands of megawatts. Of course we have to take a few steps to get there. The first step will be in the order of three to five megawatts and then we will go in jumps from let’s say 50 to 150 to 250 and then after that to a larger jump to 1,000 megawatts.

Voiceover Australia is looking for ways to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions amid rising environmental concerns. Geodynamics’ hot fractured rocks programme is on track to provide the answers we’re looking for. To create emission-free energy in abundance, from a natural energy source.