GEOTHERMAL IS A PLENTIFUL RESOURCE IN THE PERTH BASIN WITH THE EQUIVALENT OF 950,000 MWTH YRS WHICH CAN BE USED FOR THINGS LIKE DISTRICT HEATING, WATER DESALINATION AND PURIFICATION OF WASTE WATER BY DISTILLATION
The delivery of infrastructure for urban development is regarded as one of the biggest challenges facing our growing population.
There is no doubt that meeting all of the needs of our rapidly growing community is putting pressure on budgets across the board and, with many of the costs transferred to the homebuyer, it is also putting pressure on housing affordability.
There is a lot of innovation happening around us, finding new ways to deliver our basic services.
Minister Jacobs announced this month that he has given the green light to a proposal for Western Australia’s first full scale tidal energy power station. Located at Doctor’s creek, near Derby, the plant will generate enough power for 10,000 to 15,000 homes by capturing the energy of the surge from the rise and fall of tides. Tidal power has been proposed in the Kimberley region since the 1960’s and with tides peaking at 11.8 metres and dropping to about 1.5m at low tide, there is plenty of energy to capture.
Considerable work has been undertaken on geothermal energy with leading UWA geothermal scientist Winthrop Professor Klaus Regenauer-Lieb recently saying that the Perth Basin, which stretches from Augusta to Geraldton, has the ideal geological settings to aim for the goal of a zero emissions geothermal city. The Australian government provided $20 million in funding to the CSIRO Geothermal project which established Perth as one of the world’s top five ‘geothermal cities.’
Geothermal energy is already used in a number of sites including the ECU campus in Joondalup and heating the swimming pools at Challenge Stadium. In June this year Green Rock Energy signed an agreement with electricity retailer, Synergy, to support a planned demonstration project.
The demonstration project will target generation capacity of 5 megawatts from the hot sedimentary water aquifers in the Perth Basin. The first phase of the project will see the drilling of 3km well in the Dongara area with the first power being generated by the end of 2015.
Whist the initial project is has just one eight the capacity of the Derby tidal energy project, the potential is enormous. Geothermal is a plentiful resource in the Perth basin with the equivalent of 950,000 MWth yrs which can be used for things like district heating, water desalination and purification of waste water by distillation.
Best of all it is located below the bulk of our population so there is excellent access to existing power infrastructure.