Ann: Leigh Creek Geothermal Exploration Licences , page-3

re: Ann: Leigh Creek Geothermal Exploration L... Planet's pole position on the grid.

Robin Bromby | November 03, 2009
Article from: The Australian

YOU can locate a high-grade gold or uranium mine just about anywhere and make the economics work. But when it comes to geothermal propositions, it is very much a matter of location, location, location.

Recapitalised and apparently re-energised comes Planet Gas with a further step into its new thrust on the geothermal front.

The junior took over an unlisted company, Gradient Energy, in September as a means to shoehorn itself into the geothermal sector. The acquisition brought with it 18,300sqkm of potential energy in the Clarence Moreton and Gloucester basins in NSW, and exploration licences in the Cooper-Eromanga basin.

But it also came came with a key property in South Australia, the Leigh Creek exploration licence covering 6589sqkm centred on the large coal field there as well as - and this is the key point - start of the electricity grid system that feeds power to Adelaide.

That is vital. Geothermal is a proposition that requires large sums of capital - those deep, deep wells cost plenty - so the last thing you want to add on is the cost of stringing hundreds of kilometres of high voltage cables to get your electricity from the heat source to the nearest possible buyer.

Today Planet reported it has been granted the Leigh Creek exploration licences. The national energy market powerlines that connect the Leigh Creek coalmine to Adelaide and Port Augusta start around Planet’s ground, and the proposed development route for the 275 kilovolt powerlines connecting the geothermal projects in the Cooper Basin to the Olympic Dam mine operated by BHP Billiton's pass through Planet’s tenement area.

It is also a good geothermal neighbourhood - the company says its and the other project areas have a potential resource of almost 1.5 million petajoules, the largest cluster of geothermal resources defined in Australia to date.

Meanwhile, in yesterday’s Pure Speculation we didn’t have space to list the geothermal companies - apart from Geodynamics - nominated by brokers Hartleys as part of their 100 company list of operations that stand to gain from the new carbon conscious era. They were Eden Energy, Greenearth Energy, Geothermal Resources, Green Rock Energy, Hot Rock, Kuth Energy, Panax Geothermal, Petratherm, Southern Gold and Torrens Energy .