Blogs & Ecology

The thing I’ve found most fascinating about the responses to the Treasury’s ETS modelling
released yesterday is how, all of a sudden, a pile of big coal’s
biggest fans are agreeing with us that coal with geosequestration isn’t
going to come cheap!

Malcolm Turnbull, for example, told the media yesterday
that “The cost of carbon capture and storage is probably the biggest
single assumption in this whole analysis… There is no full-blown
demonstration plant employing carbon capture and storage so estimates
of its costs are speculative.”

Image: Energy Information Administration

Just when we thought there were no more new fandangled ways of deriving energy from our shriveling planet, Australia comes up trumps. Scientists there believe untapped geothermal energy locked in three miles below the Earth’s surface is a worthwhile and completely sustainable alternative to using fossil fuels.

It’s estimated that only one percent of Australia’s geothermal energy, which is often referred to as ‘hot rocks’, could produce up to 26,000 years worth of clean electricity.

Image from Ben Tubby

Indonesia and the Philippines need help. And not because they lack the geothermal energy capacity: No, quite simply, it's because they're having trouble accessing it. The two Asian countries, both of which are located in the geothermally-active Pacific Ring of Fire, are increasingly turning to this vast, untapped source of power as rising oil prices and a dilapidated power infrastructure begin to exact their toll on their economies.

photo by: nivedita kashyap via flickr

Chalk it up to coincidence? New Zealand is on the verge of a power crisis (though prime minister Helen Clark won’t call it an actual emergency) and NZ$2.6 million (US$1.97 million) is awarded to GNS Science to carry out research on the potential of geothermal energy in the Pacific island nation....

Curious about how Iceland's geothermal power stations actually work? Let Albert Albertsson, the deputy CEO of a large station there, take you through the finer points of the energy extraction process, courtesy of the folks at Greenbang. He provides a great introduction to some of the more technical details, including a description of how the island's volcanic activ...