Energy harvested from deeply buried hot granites or other rocks.
Geodynamics, a company in S.Australia, is struggling to bring this idea to fruition.
It requires drilling two holes 1000metres apart and between 4,500 -5000 metres deep and circulating water between them in a zone in which the average rock temperature is 250 degrees centigrade. To date two holes have been drilled to the required depth but one collapsed near the bottom and efforts to redrill the final 150 metres has so far failed.The Project is supported by the Australian Federal Government who have stumped up $5,000,000 to allow continued drilling.
From the enviromental point of view all the boxes get ticks . No CO2, no waste to dispose of.
The site has an eventual planned output of 280 mega watts. Estimated cost of power is about $45.00 per megawatthour which is very competative.
One trouble is that it is in the middle of a desert and a long way from consumers. Cheers Dick
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