DESERTEC COMMENTARY:
Geothermal and Solar: The Marriage Made in Heaven 

Tim Flannery recently claimed Australia has a "century's worth of power" in geothermal energy in the South Australian Outback. Geothermal industry officials back him up. They estimate Australia could have 4,500MW of base load electricity capacity from hot dry rocks operating by 2030. By that same year, Australia could also have 8,000MW of concentrating solar power capacity generated from much the same locations.

Concentrating solar power and hot dry rocks geothermal together could create 13,000MW or more of new Australian electricity generation capacity by 2030. As it happens, 13,000 MW is the amount Ziggy Switkowski says nuclear power might provide Australia by 2050, 20 years later. By that point, solar and geothermal will be cheaper than nuclear -- much, much cheaper.

Powerful geothermal and solar energy resources are found in many of the same places in Australia: the hot dry interior. The very best locations lie in northeastern South Australia and southwestern Queensland. Both are parts of the country that don't have many other uses. Large-scale geothermal plants in places like Innamincka and Olympic Dam Queensland operating side by side with large-scale concentrating solar power plants would provide huge amounts of clean, green renewable energy and create economies of scale. They would also create employment in regional areas and enhance Australia’s global environmental credentials.

Naysayers will say such a plan is "pie-in-the-sky" fantasy. They will claim the technologies and processes involved are unproven. But that's a false argument. Geothermal and concentrating solar plants have decades-long operating histories. Carbon capture and storage and so-called next generation nuclear plants don't. What's more, ramping up geothermal and solar won't swallow huge amounts of startup subsidies with no certainty of success.

In Australia, geothermal energy wells up from below and solar energy falls from above. Harvesting both in large quantities at low costs creates a big solution to Australia's greenhouse gas problem. Geothermal and solar energy won't be subject to supply disruptions, prickly cartels, bomb proliferation or punitive carbon taxes. Geothermal and solar energy both use free fuel, which in turn means highly-predictable energy prices.

At the microeconomic level, predictable energy prices reduce the need for electricity price hedging, lowering electricity costs. At the macroeconomic level, reducing energy price volatility renders everything from taxation to the conduct of monetary policy just that much easier. What’s not to like?

Aggressively developing solar and geothermal energy side by side through "the right policies" as John Howard suggests can make Australia a clean, green energy superpower. Leading by example, Australia can become a large volume producer, technological leader and skilled labor magnet. Experts will flock here to learn about Australia’s clean energy miracle. Australia will prosper. This time, it won’t prosper just from the sheep's back or the backhoe's bucket. Instead, it will benefit from nature's two truly inexhaustible renewables: sunlight and heat.  

Care for an example?

Just look at Iceland. That country's pioneering development of geothermal energy has allowed the country to support the highest per capita electricity usage in the world – all from clean energy. Now, not content to merely sit on its laurels, Iceland's moving aggressively toward the hydrogen economy. It's progressively shifting its transport and fishing fleets over to hydrogen fuel. Australia could do well by following Iceland's lead. Iceland’s done pretty well so far in the renewable energy game.