SA's geothermal potential being ignored
The geothermal potential in South Africa has been overlooked says Graham Gavine‚ a geologist at HRP Geopower.
"The current view of renewable energy in South Africa is skewed towards solar and wind energy.
The potential for power generation using geothermal energy has been overlooked‚ despite the fact that South Africa has a need for a clean base-load power‚ which geothermal provides.
"Our research has shown that we could set up a 30 megawatt plant at a capital cost of about R3m. As a geothermal plant uses a closed water system and a heat exchanger the operating costs are minimal. The problem at the moment is the regulatory environment‚ as there is no legislation covering geothermal‚ so it makes it difficult to get permits, licences and so forth‚" Gavine said.
He says there are at least 15 listed Australian companies working in the geothermal arena with most of their activity focused on enhanced geothermal systems in the Cooper Basin‚ which has the steep thermal gradient required to make geothermal projects work.
Source: I-Net Bridge
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