Geothermal mine to power University of WA – note the quote “…be used in the design of a desalination plant, which would utilize geothermal energy to create fresh water.” I wonder where we find this raging success 7 years later? Green Rock Energy GRK is mentioned in the above article – they were reconstituted as Black Rock Mining Limited asx code BKT and here is the full share price history. Green Rock Energy fell on tough times and changed into Black Rock Mining Limited about a year ago – April 2015 and at that time the new company moved into graphite exploration. Note the map of Hot Rock tenements still held by Black Rock Mining Limited. Some around Wellington Dam.
SFA geothermal around Perth because there’s no radioactive deposits nearby to produce sufficient heat. Geothermal is Nuclear in Australia ( wp.me/P1QUg8-2C )
Unfortunately, one doesn’t get a PhD for spotting the bleeding obvious; perhaps only by obfuscating it. Only by doing so, can the collection of grants be maximised.
As for raging success: “For most operational conditions germane to sensible waste heat sources and renewable energies, the Boosted MED system offers both a thermodynamic and economic superior performance, especially when low heating media temperatures prevail. From about 80 °C onwards, feed pre-heating becomes thermodynamically increasingly competitive, but due to the rising auxiliary power demand fails to surpass the Boosted MED on an economic comparison over the surveyed application range.”
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0011916415000041
The desal appears to be distillation of deep underground hot water.
Otherwise, the focus on cooling from hot water is misguided. My electricity bill tells me I spend more than twice as much on winter heating as summer cooling. When it’s hot in Perth, it’s not normally humid, so we don’t run airconditioning at around 30C, when in the humid east they will run it all day.
And district heating/cooling only works with high density housing which is non-existent in Perth more than 2 kms from the CBD. Might be feasible for something like a large shopping mall or the airport.
Finally, it seems they want to extract the underground water which means a lot of waste warm water.
I can not see where they indicate – “distillation of deep underground hot water.” yet I see twice in the article a ref to steam. WRT your last point I assume the used hot/warm water is returned to the aquifer.
I found an earlier post of mine
Are there any geothermal electricity generation success stories in Australia? 9 Oct 2013
www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=2407
I am guessing over a $Bill has been spent/wasted on this quest for geothermal electricity generation over 15 years. If anybody has seen other estimates please post.
In the case of Geodynamics GDY – up to late 2013 they had raised $220mill from shareholders and scored $107mill in Govt grants. So that is $327mill gone just in one ASX company. There are many others.
Links to some of my articles –
www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?s=Geodynamics
Then of course there is this ongoing problem
“A dodgy heating system at Beatty Park Leisure Centre in North Perth is expected to leave the City of Vincent with a bill close to $700,000”
www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/beatty-park-geothermal-pool-heater-fault-to-cost-vincent-council-700000-20160506-goodcl.html
Warwick, it’s all kind of vague.
But this said distillation to me,
‘focus will be on direct heat uses including air-conditioning and desalination of water, which displace electricity as their energy source. ‘
The only way to desal water with direct heat is distillation.
They could pump the water back underground, but that would cost as much again, if not more, as extracting it in the first place. Almost all existing geothermal projects pump water through underground pipes in a closed system. Hence no waste problem.
Thanks for that timely find Alan – I must keep an eye out for any similar “system problems”.
Something familiar here. Remember another geothermal venture Geodynamics (GDY) spruiked by Tim Flannery was to be the source of endless “free” hot rocks electricity. As with Green/Black Energy/Mining things have gone pear shape for GDY, not to mention the flushing of $90M in taxpayer grants money down the drain.