Coming to the Surface Near You: The Hottest Rock Band!

Did you know that Australia has the hottest known near-surface rocks outside of volcanic areas anywhere in the world? The team at Hot Dry Rocks knows, and it wants to spread the word. The Australian geothermal outfit announced it has signed a memorandum of understanding with three European companies to form EGS Global Group, an alliance aimed at building awareness and development of engineered geothermal systems (EGS), and to provide Australia with world-class opportunities for EGS energy developments. Climate Spectator has this and other clean energy stories.

Sophie Vorrath in Climate Spectator 10 March 2011

Did you know that Australia has the hottest known near-surface rocks outside of volcanic areas anywhere in the world? The team at Hot Dry Rocks knows, and it wants to spread the word. The Australian geothermal outfit announced yesterday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with three European companies to form EGS Global Group, an alliance aimed at building awareness and development of engineered geothermal systems (EGS), and to provide Australia with world-class opportunities for EGS energy developments.

Not only do EGS resources exist in vast quantities within 5 km of the earth’s surface, but according to HDR, decades of international research has established proven techniques for safely extracting the heat energy by pumping water through the earth’s hot rocks and back to the surface where the heat is used to drive turbines and generate electricity. “EGS has the potential to be the cleanest, most reliable, and one of the cheapest sources of renewable energy available,” says HDR’s technical director Graeme Beardsmore. “Now that we have a carbon price mechanism on the government’s agenda, providing more certainty for developers, investors and power consumers alike, this is the ideal time to increase efforts to promote EGS as the future energy alternative and the EGS Global Group allows us to take this lead.”

A spokesman for EGS Energy – leading UK geothermal player and one of the founding companies of the EGS Global Group; along with HDR, Germany-based BESTEC GmbH and GPC Instrumentation Process SARL of France – Guy Macpherson-Grant says a shared understanding between the four countries’ leading geothermal specialists will help develop the sector responsibly. “The respective business interests, experience and skill sets of the partner agencies fit well together, and by supporting one another to develop the sector, the EGS Global Group is paving the way for increased geothermal exploration and development,” he said.

Guardian angels

Obviously, the feeling out there in the cleantech world is that more help is required to really get the industry moving. Another announcement this week heralds the launch of The CleanTech Angels Network – a group whose purpose will be to link cleantech companies seeking funds with Angel investors seeking investments in the sector; a symbiotic process that is not, it seems, happening spontaneously. “Australia is lacking the drivers that are seen elsewhere in the world,” says John O’Brien, managing director of Australian CleanTech, the research and advisory firm behind the development of the Network. “The government stimulus is fragmented and small, the regulatory measures are providing only some assistance and the venture capital industry is under-funded.”

Meanwhile, says O’Brien, there is increasing demand from industry and the wider community for technology and business solutions that have environmental and economic benefits. And thought there are many solutions being developed, there’s a lack of accessible investment to bring them to market. “We are approached by many emerging cleantech companies that require between $100,000 and $300,000 to bring their ideas to market. Many of these are very promising concepts and ones that would also benefit from the expertise of an experienced angel investor,” says O’Brien. “It is very hard for many of these companies to even get passed first base with any investors that they are able to easily access.”

Indeed, such companies are already lining up for help. The Network’s inaugural list of technologies seeking developmental support includes: an integrated solar system that provides hot water, power, heating and air conditioning; a building construction system with a patented super-insulated, low labour, construction methodology that reduces home energy use by up to 80 per cent; a DVD material solution that claims to reduce the cost and carbon footprint of DVD production by 52 per cent; two wave energy technologies; an integrated food production system that profitably produces freshwater fish and organic vegetables; a solar module production facility that plans to produce panels especially adapted for the Australian market; and a micro-algae biofuels project that plans to build decentralised rural industries.

Big breakthrough, small technology

A new method for the production of catalysts used in the manufacture of super-strong, super-lightweight technologies known as nano-carbon products, has been developed by the US-based arm of Australia’s ASX- listed Eden Energy Limited. The company announced the breakthrough this week, saying it would make the production of the catalysts – an essential manufacturing step to producing such nano-carbon products as carbon nanotubes and nanofibers – 15X faster, as well as cheaper and more productive. “The new process works for a variety of catalyst compositions, reduces the quantity of chemicals needed, is easily scalable for higher production and eliminates the majority of the time and labor needed for previous catalyst production methods,” said Eden’s executive chairman Greg Solomon.

“For the production of nano-carbon with specific structure and physical properties, the composition and atomic-level crystalline structure of the elements in the catalyst is critical. In addition, the catalyst particle size and surface area can have significant effects on the total nano-carbon production yields and the stability of carbon growth on the catalyst,” Solomon said. “Hythane Company has reduced the particle size range from approximately 100 micron down to about 1 micron. …(and) the bulk densities of the catalyst powders have been reduced by a factor of about five, an indication of the micro-porous structure and much higher surface area created by the new method.”

Source: www.climatespectator.com.au