Cairns Post
Wednesday 7/5/2008 Page: 33
A TASMANIAN company is negotiating native title rights for geothermal exploration at two Far Northern sites. KUTh Energy expects to be given exploration permits once native title issues have been settled for sites at Jackin Creek near Weipa and at Eveleigh, north of Einasleigh. Both areas cover more than 600sq km with both areas involving hot springs.
KUTh chief operations officer Malcolm Ward told The Cairns Post the Weipa site had the potential to replace the costly diesel generators which provided the community and mine with its power. Mr Ward said that as any thermal power generated from hot rocks at Jackin Creek would not be fed into the power grid, the generation levels did not need to be as high a level. "Using diesel generators for power is costly," Mr Ward said.
Any power generated from the hot springs at Eveleigh would be fed into the Queensland grid. Last week, Queensland's first geothermal energy exploration permit was granted to New South Wales company Granite Power for a study area in southeast Queensland. Queensland Mines and Energy Minister Geoff Wilson said there were nine tenement areas across Queensland which had potential for geothermal energy projects.
"Queensland has the potential to be a world leader in geothermal energy and the Bligh Government is backing this clean, green energy industry to the hilt," Mr Wilson said. "The granting of this exploration permit is a significant milestone in the development of geothermal energy industry in Queensland." Preferred tenderers for the third round of geothermal permit tenders will be announced shortly. Mr Wilson said there had been an amount of uncertainty with some explorers in the application of the Commonwealth Native Title Act to geothermal exploration.
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