Geodynamics seeking customers for geothermal power

The SMH reports that geothermal power company GeoDynamics (which has greatly disappointed me over the years) is still working hard to progress their plant at Innamicka in South Australia - Hot rocks power company seeking customers.

Geodynamics, the developer of Australia’s first deep hot rocks energy project, aims to secure customers for its Cooper Basin site within six to 12 months, allowing it to proceed to a larger commercial plant, said chief executive Geoff Ward.

The company has spent more than $400 million since listing in 2002, including buying equipment and drilling. Its 1-megawatt Habanero pilot plant was commissioned on April 30 and has been operating in excess of expectations since, said chief executive Geoff Ward. "We're delighted by how stable and reliable" the operation has been, he said.

The geothermal plant at Innamincka in north-eastern SA taps salty water heated at 210 degrees more than 4.2 kilometres below the surface, extracting the heat to generate electricity. The cooled brine is then pumped back down a separate well where it is reheated by the hot rocks, creating an energy loop. Only two other sites now operate so-called enhanced geothermal systems, at Soulz in France and Landau in Germany.

Geodynamics will only proceed with a 5-10 megawatt commercial plant if it can secure customers. Potential clients include Santos, which operates its own gas and oil hub at Moomba, about 70 kilometres away. Beach Energy and Chevron, meanwhile, are exploring for unconventional shale gas within 5-15 kilometres of Geodynamics's wells.

GeoDynamics' competitor Petratherm seems to be losing confidence in their proposed alternative project, with the company looking to explore for shale oil in Tasmania.

After years of trying to commercialise geothermal energy in the South Australian outback, ASX listed Petratherm announced plans to diversify into shale oil and gas in Tasmania. ''This decision by Petratherm to extend into unconventional shale oil and gas exploration leverages our core areas of expertise that include basin geology and deep drilling,'' the company said.

Petratherm managing director Terry Kallis sought to reassure environmentally conscious investors that the company had not abandoned its geothermal project, which is planned to be about 75 per cent smaller than previous plans. But funding is hard to come by, and a $13 million government grant can be used only if Petratherm can raise millions of its own, a task that will be even more difficult under a lower carbon price.

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Petratherm spells out green vision for South Australia

Progress on goethermal power projects in South Australia has been disappointingly slow, however Petratherm continue to plug away trying to generate interest in a renewable energy precinct supplying power to Olympic Dam and adjoining mine sites. Recharge News reports - Geothermal group spells out green vision for South Australia.

Petratherm claims new tests reveal that wind and solar could play a big part in its vision of a 600MW Clean Energy Precinct in the north of the Australian state.

Assessments from consultancy Garrad Hassan Pacific reveal wind speeds of up to 8 metres per second at a height of 100 metres – offering the potential to host a 300MW wind farm – and a solar resource of 20 mega-joules per sq metre daily.

Adelaide-based Petratherm expects to complete the first 300MW stage of the project based on wind and gas generation. The second stage would see the deployment of large-scale geothermal energy from Petratherm’s ongoing South Australian Paralana project, supplemented by solar. The total cost of the project – located 300km northeast of Port Augusta – is estimated to be A$1.5bn ($1.57bn).

Petratherm says it is in discussions with key investors locally and overseas over potential technology and joint-venture partnerships. “It’s still early days for the precinct, but we remain firmly on track to combine new power generation facilities across gas, wind, solar and geothermal to eventually produce 600MW of reliable, competitively-priced electricity to meet anticipated demand from large mining developments in SA,” says Petratherm managing director Terry Kallis.

Petratherm sees robust demand growth from very large mines 270km east of the proposed site of the Clean Energy Precinct, including BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam – eventually tipped to be the biggest in the world – and OZ Mineral’s Prominent Hill and Carapateena mines. Between them they are estimated to have a total potential demand in excess of 700MW.

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Clean Energy for BHP’s Olympic Dam Expansion ?

Giles Parkinson at The Climate Spectator has a look at geothermal energy company Petratherm’s proposal for a renewable energy complex to power BHP’s Olympic Dam mine (the world’s largest if / when the expansion project is completed) - Cheap and green energy for miners.

It may seem somewhat audacious for a company with a market value of $16 million to propose a world-leading energy project nearly one hundred times its value. But, says Petratherm managing director Terry Kallis, if you don’t dream, you don’t get. And he just happens to think he’s sitting on a unique opportunity.

Kallis, on Wednesday, outlined his vision for a $1.5 billion clean energy precinct in the outback of South Australia that would take advantage of the unique combination of geothermal, solar and wind energy resources, the intersection of major gas pipelines, and the proximity of the world’s largest mine and other major developments.

The big opportunity is, of course, to service the massive energy demands of BHP Billiton’s proposed Olympic Dam expansion – which could be more than 700MW at that site alone – as well as other mine proposals or expansions such as Prominent Hill and Carrapateena. Mine managers do not normally think along the lines that Kallis has proposed – they will simply build a new transmission line if a connection is close enough, or build enough gas or diesel to ensure the operations keep going 24/7.

However, BHP Billiton have shown that they are willing to consider all options. As we reported in May, the world’s biggest mining company is effectively hedging its bets around the supply of energy and, after conducting a detailed analysis, is willing to concede that geothermal and solar power have the potential to offer the cheapest form of emissions reductions by the end of the decade, if not earlier, and the cheapest form of energy.

Kallis’ idea is to show BHP the path to get there, and to keep their options open as long as possible, so that they can take advantage of the opportunities when the new technologies are bankable, and can deliver at the costs anticipated. Kallis, of course, has great interest in this, because his company proposes to supply the geothermal energy – and Olympic Dam is too good an opportunity to let slide. "We want to make sure we don’t lose the opportunity to get geothermal into that market," he says.

Kallis proposes to create a clean energy precinct on the Moolawatana cattle station around 50km north of Petratherm’s Paralana geothermal prospect, and just over 200km from Olympic Dam. The plan calls for an initial 300MW of capacity – mostly gas sourcing fuel from the passing Moomba-Adelaide gas pipeline, and wind – and have that ready by 2016, around the time Olympic Dam would need it. The wind resource is not officially documented, but the cattle station’s name comes from the local indigenous word for “windy place", so Kallis expects that should not be a problem.

The idea is then to add another 300MW or so of geothermal and solar energy as those technologies mature by the end of the decade, and around the time Olympic Dam would be contemplating its next stage of expansion. The mixture of those four energy sources should provide the miner with the confidence of a secure supply. Kallis says they will be able to deliver attractive hybrid products that lower electricity costs and improve reliability, while also reducing carbon emissions.

Kallis has aligned himself with some unnamed parties – presumably gas, transmission and technology people – and plans to open formal talks with BHP with the view to obtaining a power purchase agreement. Failing that, they will talk to the local utility. Petratherm is, of course, in no position to fund this project, but as it has done by bringing in TruEnergy and Beach Petroleum to partner in its geothermal development, Kallis anticipates there will be no shortage of potential partners.

Of course, Kallis is not the only one to dream of creating a new energy precinct based around the needs of a large mining operation. The so-called “green grid" proposal to unlock huge wind resources in South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula is still awaiting the opportunity to proceed and will rely mostly on an upgraded connection to the eastern seaboard and the Copperstring project in Queensland, a project that was noisily supported by local member Bob Katter and hoped to link Townsville and Mt Isa and open up a string of renewable energy plays in wind, solar and biomass along the way.

However, such was the length of the transmission line that the fate of Cooperstring rested on the support of a single end user in Mt Isa, in this case Xstrata. Despite support from the Queensland state government, the Swiss-based Xstrata board plumped for the easy, not necessarily cheaper, option of a gas fired power station, and Copperstring is now dead. BHP, at least, is alert to the options, and as the country's biggest company with the world's biggest mine, would be aware of strong signal it would send to the broader economy.

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