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Hypocrasy swirls all around the issue of CO2 emissions in Australia. The Greens want to convince us we can get everything we want with solar panels and wind turbines. Issues of dealing with the costs of variability are hand waved away.
The Libs denied Global Warming until they couldn't any longer.
The Labor Party and Greens scaremonger Nuclear Power to win votes and champion pretty marginal technology as saviours.
Dr. Karl is no better in promoting GeoThermal hot rocks. There is really a lot of basic science that should be done before we launch into this. One decent seismic event could ruin billions of dollars of infrastructure to say nothing of the potential maintenance costs of pumping billions of litres of hot, very saline water rich in radon through heat exchangers.
Earthquakes have not shut down the 500 megawatt Geysers geothermal power project here in California. Earthquakes knock down structures but don't do that much damage to steel lined tube wells. There are millions of water, gas, and oil tube wells all over the world. We know how they react to earthquakes.
Sometimes the earthquake can change the rock porosity and other characteristics by changing the stress in the rock and opening or reopening cracks or channels. So a well can flow more or less water if it is near the surface, where pressure variations are more important than in deep wells like the very deep hot rock geothermal wells.
I'm not sure it's a good idea, but that's because hot rock geothermal is not as tried and true a technology as is natural hot springs geothermal power.
I suggest we spend a token one nuclear power plant's worth of money on proving the technology, and if it doesn't work, try something else.
Solar and wind are already proven technology, even if solar power really isn't usefull for anything more than running the air conditioners during clear summer days, and wind power is only good for extending the power output of hydroelectric power plants by one or two hundred percent.
We still need nukes.
This could be a subject for another post, but I think dry rock geothermal will work out expensive. Problems include lack of control over water passage ways, the low temperature gradient (I know about Kalina cycle yada yada), the need to conserve water in dry or uranium bearing areas, isolation from transmission lines and the need to keep the beefed up rig coming back to drill new holes.
I think solar thermal with storage will work out cheaper and more flexible. Still I think a couple of serious geothermal startups should get public assistance to work out the bugs.
Well - there are plenty of people trying to see if HFR geothermal works (see my post today on the topic for most of the gory details).
I think its a big enough potential source that it is worth putting some time and money into.
The Hunter Valley area is interesting in this regard, as there seems to be a lot of potential that would be very easy to tie into the existing grid.
Solar thermal is an easier option of course - its just a matter of getting the people in Canberra to help kick things off (carbon taxes would help).
I'll fill in the hand waving for you - smart grids, demand management and energy storage.
Its all quite do-able if enough effort is put in (adding ocean energy and geothermal to the mix obviously makes it a lot easier of course).