Earths Energy boss Josh Puckridge calls for shift to geothermal energy

With hopes of a hydrogen revolution rapidly fading, Earths Energy boss Josh Puckridge believes it’s time to reconsider the potential of geothermal energy.

Geodynamics' drilling rig near Innamincka, pictured in 2007.

Earths Energy boss Josh Puckridge believes a geothermal renaissance is slowly re-emerging in Australia as hopes for a green hydrogen revolution rapidly fade, and says emerging technologies developed out of the US could be key to putting the industry back on the map.

As the only pure play geothermal player on the ASX, Earths Energy is currently undertaking a technical and economic feasibility study for its flagship Paralana project – 300km north-east of Port Augusta in South Australia’s Far North – which was previously explored by Petratherm more than a decade ago.

For a brief period in the mid-2000s, geothermal plays like Petratherm and Geodynamics flourished, raising hundreds of millions of dollars and winning significant federal government support in the hope they’d find a way to tap heat in deep granites and use it to generate electricity.

While those efforts ultimately failed, Mr Puckridge says modern enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) have since emerged in the US, offering hope that Paralana could be developed into one of the world’s largest geothermal projects.

“The work that was done at Paralana in 2011 and 2010 was excellent – a lot of money spent there, $40m-odd, and having actual drill results from over 4km worth of depth is great,” he said.

“The first step for us was to look at the known geophysical resource of Paralana ... and look at if we take the advances in geothermal around the world from the last 10 years, how would we approach Paralana and how different would the outcome be?

“We’re in the final stages of that now and it’s really promising. It does show that there was always the right reasons to be in Paralana – it’s the right rocks, it’s the right depth, its the right heat. There’s a lot of power there and whilst we haven’t released numbers yet, they make Paralana a top ten geothermal project in the world, in terms of scale.”

Formerly Cradle Resources, Earths Energy returned to trade on the ASX at the beginning of last year after raising $6m from investors and acquiring 84 per cent of Volt Geothermal and Within Energy, and their geothermal assets in Queensland and South Australia.

Mr Puckridge, who took over from former managing director Matt Kay in June, said that while previous attempts to use EGSs – which inject a liquid, typically water, into the hot rocks to extract heat – failed more than a decade ago, cheaper and more advanced drilling methods, including ‘horizontal drilling’, increased heat and pressure build up in reservoirs.

“When geothermal all but evaporated in Australia, the Americans really ran with it, and have poured billions of dollars in R&D into it,” he said.

“And so now we see this renaissance of that EGS process out of places like Houston.

“What we’ve been working on is leveraging our extensive US contacts, and we’re essentially trying to cultivate an endorsement of more experienced geothermal investors and operators, and bringing them to Australia – what I would call a US-led endorsement strategy.

“My view is that there needs to be a bit of third party validation for what we’re trying to do – it’s very hard to get people to re-engage, reinvigorate with something that has the perception of being a non-starter, from 13 or so years ago.”

Mr Puckridge said Earths Energy was in talks with US investors and oil & gas companies on potential joint venture agreements that would enable the company to proceed with a commercial pilot project to prove up Paralana’s potential to become a world-leading geothermal province.

And following the South Australian government’s decision to shelve its $600m hydrogen plan in the wake of the collapse of the Whyalla steelworks, Mr Puckridge believes the time is right to reconsider the potential for geothermal to be added to the state’s renewable energy mix.

“South Australia has world-class geothermal resources ready to be tapped, and unlike hydrogen, geothermal doesn’t require building an entirely new supply chain – we can produce green electricity directly,” he said.

“Looking at the investment interest we got in 2010 and 2011 for geothermal – can that be recreated? I think it can. In the same way as last time? No, I think the approach is going to be a bit more sensible and with a real focus on maintaining credibility for the space so that it isn’t a flash in the pan again.”