SMH - Hot-rock industry stakes a claim

USING just 1 per cent of Australia's so-called "hot rocks" supply could produce 26,000 times the amount of energy that is now used each year. The figures, compiled by Geoscience Australia, were such a surprise to the office of the Minister for Resources, Martin Ferguson, that staff had them checked six times before releasing them. "The potential of the geothermal industry in Australia is truly staggering … It provides clean baseload power and is potentially a very important contributor to Australia's energy mix in a carbon-constrained world," Mr Ferguson said.

Bloomberg - Geothermal Energy May Supply 5% of Australia's Power

Business Spectator - Petratherm's Paralana promise

Petratherm has come out swinging saying that geothermal power, unlike wind power, can meet Australia’s grid demand for base load electricity supply. Managing director Terry Kallis said in a statement ahead of this week’s Australian Geothermal Energy Conference in Melbourne that Petratherm’s recently completed “dollar-for-megawatt” cost assessment of wind versus geothermal showed that the company’s Paralana project in South Australia would compete almost equally with wind power.

Google.org Blog - Enough geothermal energy to power the globe -- now that's hot!

Today, as part of our Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal initiative, Google.org announced more than $10 million in investments and grants in Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) technology. EGS expands the potential of traditional geothermal energy by orders of magnitude. The traditional geothermal approach relies on finding naturally occurring pockets of steam or hot water. The EGS process, by comparison, replicates these conditions by fracturing hot rock, circulating water through the system, and using the resulting steam to produce electricity in a conventional turbine. ...

Working with Geodynamics, one of the world's leading EGS development companies, we modeled Geodynamics' first 50 MW system at the Cooper Basin in SketchUp, Google's 3D modeling technology. To see how EGS works, check out the animation of the SketchUp model or download it.

Courier Mail - Underground plan for Brisbane

AN underground rail system for Brisbane's CBD is now being considered by the State Government following a year-long feasibility study into the project.

Courier Mail - Eco-friendly and cheap housing plan for Brisbane's north

THE State Government is devising a massive eco-friendly housing development in northern Brisbane which could rule out McMansions. It would also force developers to provide cheap housing. But there are already serious doubts about whether its plans are viable.

Business Spectator - Origin's valuation gamble

Origin Energy’s target statement is a curious document, designed more to put BG Group’s $13.8 billion into a holding pattern than as a comprehensive demolition of the merits of the offer. While Origin does go through the motions of presenting a conventional defence, extolling the virtues of its position as an "outstanding fuel-integrated generation and retail business," the core of the defence is its position in coal seam gas (CSG).

Business Spectator - Playing the climate card

In what may be a world first for a large takeover battle, Origin Energy has played heavily on its climate friendly credentials as it seeks to rebuff the $13.8 billion cash bid from England’s BG Group.

Bloomberg - Queensland Gas Offers A$837 Million for Sunshine Gas

Queensland Gas Co., one of five companies proposing a liquefied natural gas project in northeast Australia, agreed to buy Sunshine Gas Ltd. for at least A$837 million ($730 million), boosting reserves by almost a quarter. ... Queensland, Australia's third-biggest fuel-consuming state, will be the major contributor to demand growth and is set to become the biggest energy user by 2012, the government's commodities forecaster said in December. Queensland Gas said it will primarily use Sunshine's reserves to meet rising local demand, as well as to bolster a planned fuel-export project

SMH - Thousands of waterfront homes in danger: scientists

THE speed at which the climate is changing has been significantly underestimated, with thousands of Australian homes potentially at risk from rising sea levels, a conference has heard.

Bloomberg - LNG Project Delays May Cut 100 Million Tons of Supply

Delays in liquefied natural gas ventures led by Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. may pare global supplies by 100 million metric tons, more than the annual demand of South Korea and Japan, the world's biggest importers. Projects in Australia, Nigeria, Algeria and the Baltics have been shelved or postponed, prompting the capacity shortfall by 2013, said Ian Angell, vice president of gas and power at Wood Mackenzie Consultants Ltd. The deficit, enough to power 250 million homes, will cause spot LNG prices to trade at parity or at a premium to oil, he said.

Brisbane Times - Oil Search looks elsewhere in PNG

OIL SEARCH is looking to pick up more prospective areas in Papua New Guinea to help commercialise those of its gas resources not committed to an ExxonMobil-led $US11 billion ($12.6 billion) liquefied natural gas project.

Peak Energy - The Economist Debate On The "World Energy Crisis"

Energy Bulletin points to a debate starting at The Economist on whether or not "breakthrough innovations" are required to solve the energy crisis. My view is that we don't really need any "breakthroughs" - just incremental advances on todays technology and wide scale deployment.

The West Australian - Long-term power vision for Pilbara

Premier Alan Carpenter has announced plans for an integrated electricity system in the Pilbara to provide the region with a stable source of power. Campaigning in Karratha this morning, Mr Carpenter said his government had submitted the project to Infrastructure Australia, requesting commonwealth investment in the transmission infrastructure for one of Australia's biggest mining areas. He said there was widespread industry support for a modern Pilbara electricity system to replace the current “ad hoc” system based on gas and diesel-fired small to medium-sized plants, and that a grid system would provide a ready market for domestic gas and accelerate the development of smaller gas fields. ...

The Labor Party predicts power demands in the Pilbara will outstrip the South-West system that supplies Perth and the south-west region by 2013 and reach 6,000 megawatts by 2015. Peak demand in the south-west runs at about 3,000MW, according to the Department of Energy.

The Age - Pilbara power plan welcomed

The Centre of Excellence in Cleaner Production at Curtin University said an integrated system could lead to more efficient and reliable energy supply. "The current grid system ... has had a piecemeal approach and the government facilitating an integrated grid ... together with the main mining players ... should mean more efficient and reliable energy," director Michele John said. "Examples ... include wave and wind power on the coast, solar thermal furnaces, geothermal, solar-thermal energy and even algae to biofuels photo-bioreactors," Ms John said.