In the Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday 21st December, Tim Flannery, author of “The Weather Makers” and enthusiastic Geodynamics shareholder, proposed the building of a fully sustainable city of hundreds of thousands in the Cooper Basin. 

Tim suggests the new city be called Geothermia. I can think of a number of potential mayors.

Green Rock Energy Ltd announced on Friday 15th December a renounceable rights issue and placement to raise just over $4m at the end of January 2007. The cash is intended primarily to fund their Hungary project.

Petratherm Limited announced spectacular heat flow results from their Paralana prospect, or “discovery”, as they are now calling it. 

The recorded heat flow of 129 mW/m2 is amongst the highest reported anywhere in Australia, on a par

with values recorded at Olympic Dam, and about double the global average. That translates into a significant heat resource beneath their tenements.

While not strictly Australian news, the following was reported in The Australian newspaper on Monday 11th November and is relevant to all groups developing hot-dry-rock-type projects in Australia:

“Swiss engineers halted an experiment to extract geothermal heat...after it set off a

small earthquake in the nearby city of Basel. The tremor...measured 3.4 on the Richter

scale and caused widespread fear...Managers apologised for...the mishap, which

occurred after water was injected at high pressure into a 5 km-deep borehole...The

Basel public prosecutor launched an investigation into the government-subsidised

project."

This may become a local issue for any development close to population centres or major infrastructure. Note the involvement of lawyers! Any German speakers amongst you can find more information at www.geopower-basel.ch, www.geothermal.ch/e.html and www.seismo.ethz.ch/basel/.

Legislation was introduced into the South Australian Parliament on Thursday 7th December calling for 20% of the state’s electricity to be generated from renewable resources by 2014, and a 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 2050.

Surely such ambitious targets can’t be entirely met by the wind industry!

Geothermal Resources Limited held their AGM. Their Chairman, Bob Johnson, announced that they are cashed up and planning their first eight shallow exploratory wells to be drilled early in the New Year.

On Wednesday 6th December, it was announced that Proactive Energy Developments Limited and the University of Newcastle have been jointly successful in round three of the federal REDI Grant scheme, being awarded $1,224,250. 

Their project is to develop “a simple-to-use, flexible and robust heat regenerator...that will enable supercritical power

cycles to be implemented in geothermal power generation.” For those of you (like me) who are not engineers, Assoc. Prof. Behdad Moghtaderi of UoN supplied me with the following: “Supercritical power cycles have...superior technical and economic characteristics over...flash, binary, and combined power cycles. The lack of acceptance...of supercritical power cycles is primarily due to...the lack of a suitable heat regenerator capable of dealing with the peculiar behaviour of working fluids in the so-called supercritical region. [This project] is an attempt to resolve this shortcoming.” 

In summary, they aim to improve the efficiency of geothermal power generation by 40%! The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2008.

Successful applicants for Round 4 of PACE (“Plan for Accelerating Exploration”) funding were announced by the Department of Primary Industries and Resources (SA) on Tuesday 5th. 

Congratulations to Eden Energy, Geodynamics and relative newcomers Torrens Energy, who have each been awarded $100k towards drilling costs to progress their geothermal projects in the Murray Basin, Cooper Basin and Adelaide Geosyncline, respectively.

Queensland’s Department of Natural Resources and Water began the month on a positive note on Friday 1st  December with an announcement in the Queensland Government Gazette of a call for tenders for 10 new geothermal exploration permits. 

The closing date for tenders is Thursday 5th April 2007. More information on the ten areas can be found at http://www.nrw.qld.gov.au/mines/geothermal/call_tenders_geotherm.html.

Australia was well represented at the NZ Geothermal Workshop in Auckland between Wednesday 15th and Friday 17th, with delegations from Geodynamics, Petratherm, Greenearth Energy, Torrens Energy and Monash University. We almost outnumbered the kiwis! 

As well as hosting a range of interesting talks, the meeting also voted into existence the Western Pacific Regional Branch of the International Geothermal Association, open to membership from across the Asia-Pacific region (even Australia!)