New hot rock field of dreams - Vast thermal power find

Sunday Mail Brisbane
Sunday 20/7/2008 Page: 5

A MINERAL-rich basin has been discovered in northwest Queensland that Premier Anna Bligh predicts could provide low-cost energy to a quarter of the state. The Millungera Basin, 100km east of Cloncurry, could be worth billions of dollars if its geothermal - or hot rocks - energy lives up to its potential. The Premier yesterday described it as one of the "most exciting resource finds this century." She said it could also mean cheaper energy for Queensland households.

"The discovery of a new, untapped basin of this size is rare anywhere in the world," the Premier told The Sunday Mail yesterday. "It is possible that this basin could hold clean energy sources that could provide low emissions power for the entire northwest region." Experts said Millungera could rival the energy potential of the Copper Basin on the Queensland-South Australia border- More than $8 billion has been invested in the Copper Basin - Australia's largest onshore resources project, discovered in 1963 and containing 630 gas wells and 340 oil wells.

Ms Bligh said the underground resource, which geologists found using cutting-edge technology that enabled them to "see" 60m beneath the surface, could also hold huge amounts of low emission coal seam gas. "Other rocks of this age in other basins have significant coal-seam gas and water resources and the granites uncovered signal the potential for new sources of geothermal energy," she said.

"The added bonus of a potential new water source would be the icing on the cake." geothermal energy is produced from heat generated and captured from deep inside the earth, and the Government has invested $140 million in developing the industry, which Ms Bligh said could generate one-fifth of Australia's total electricity needs over the next 25 years without producing any carbon dioxide emissions.

Mines and Energy Minister Geoff Wilson said further surveys would be carried out to better define the size, shape and depth of the basin. "We will shortly consider which blocks of land could be released for tender for geothermal and gas exploration," he said.