It's a lot cheaper to drill a 650m bore than a 1,500m or deeper bore. When compared to geothermal systems around the world, it's obvious natural hot water beneath the Latrobe Valley, at only 650m depth, is a truly world class geothermal energy resource that has, until now, been largely overlooked. In other words, water is not consumed in the production of geothermal energy, making it renewable and sustainable. Importantly, in almost every case, the water itself is returned to the aquifer after delivering its heat. And Perth, Western Australia, uses natural hot water (40–52℃ from 750–1,150m) to heat at least 14 leisure and aquatic centers. On a smaller scale, a town in Hungary circulates natural hot water (64–72℃ from 1,450–1,700m depth) through a network of distribution pipes. Wells as deep as 2,600m produce up to 70℃ water for many industrial purposes, from winter heating for hotels and factories, to greenhouse cultivation, to public geothermal bathing pools visited by as many as 50,000 people per day. In the Netherlands, industrial scale greenhouses are replacing their natural gas heating systems with geothermal heat from aquifers, 1,800-2,200m below the surface.īeijing is one of the world's leading urban centers using geothermal energy. Beneath the Latrobe Valley, thick coal layers act like a blanket, which makes the underlying aquifers hotter than aquifers in other locations.īeijing is a world leader in geothermal energy use. That vast internal heat is like a hotplate warming natural groundwater from below. The core of the Earth is about the same temperature as the surface of the sun. With the coal era now drawing to a close, it's time we made better use of this vast, clean source of energy to help cut national emissions and ease the energy transition. Jenkin noted many "occurrences of high temperature waters in East Gippsland." We now know the hot water underlies about 6,000 square kilometers of Gippsland, from Morwell in the west to Lakes Entrance in the east, and holds the equivalent of A$30 billion of heat at today's natural gas price.īut with natural gas flowing from Bass Strait, and vast reserves of brown coal in the Latrobe Valley, there has been little incentive to develop alternative energy sources.
The hot aquifer was first reported as long ago as 1962, when government geologist J.J.
They chose it-over natural gas, coal-fired power or even emissions-free solar and wind-because geothermal energy is now the cheapest option for heating. This aquifer is a source of geothermal energy-a renewable source of heat or electricity that is, so far, being used to heat an aquatic center in the town of Traralgon.
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