Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Stewart Hamilton: Mercury Energy CEO on Shane Jones draft strategy to increase geothermal energy

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Stewart Hamilton: Mercury Energy CEO on Shane Jones draft strategy to increase geothermal energy · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: More energy is on the way and it's coming from
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  Speaker 1: below our feet. Energy mister Shane Jones announcing yesterday plan
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  Speaker 1: to double our production of geothermal energy by twenty forty.
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  Speaker 1: He says we have the potential to be a world
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  Speaker 1: leader in the geothermal sector. Stuart Hamilton is Mercury Energy
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  Speaker 1: CEO with me this morning. Hey Stuart, good morning, How
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  Speaker 1: are you good? Thank you? What did you make of this?
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  Speaker 1: I mean it's a first of all, it's a draft plan,
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  Speaker 1: but is there enough meat on the bones for you?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good start, we think. Looking Zilland's already
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  Speaker 2: a global leader in gffrmal energy production, and we've produced
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  Speaker 2: about twenty percent of our christy from geoffrmal compared to
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  Speaker 2: a place like the US where it's less than one
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  Speaker 2: So we've definitely got huge potential to not only just
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  Speaker 2: use this to decarbonize, as it actually potentially grow our
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  Speaker 2: economy and various advanced technologies like supercritical.
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  Speaker 1: Why do we need the government to be stumping up
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  Speaker 1: money for drilling new wells?
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  Speaker 2: So welling is that drilling wells is a huge upfront
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  Speaker 2: cost and large risk in geofrmal development. So we drill
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  Speaker 2: wells are about three kilimeters deep, and each well cost
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  Speaker 2: is about fifteen to twenty million dollars. So despite extensive investigation,
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  Speaker 2: sometimes you can miss that hot liquid under our feet.
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  Speaker 2: And when each geofrmal field needs about ten to twenty wells,
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  Speaker 2: it's a pretty large upfront cost and risk.
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  Speaker 1: How do you know where the hot liquid is? Well,
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  Speaker 1: obviously it's not an exact science.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly that you can do quite a lot of investigation
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  Speaker 2: from the surface to get an understanding of what where
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  Speaker 2: the liquid might be and when the heat might be,
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  Speaker 2: but it's not until you actually start drilling that you
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  Speaker 2: get a feel for whether you've got both the heat,
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  Speaker 2: but you actually need to have the hot liquid as well,
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  Speaker 2: so you need both of those in combination.
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  Speaker 1: When are we going to start drilling or are we
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  Speaker 1: already you know, more than five k's for the real
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  Speaker 1: potent stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So the super critical is something which we're working
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  Speaker 2: on at the moment. There's probably going to be it's
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  Speaker 2: sort of in development over the next couple of years.
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  Speaker 2: But despite that, in the meantime, we're actually doing quite
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  Speaker 2: a lot of work with conventional GF thermal so mercury.
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  Speaker 2: For example, we're currently doing a three hundred million dollar
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  Speaker 2: expansion of one of our sites and that will come
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  Speaker 2: on stream early next year and produced enough power for
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  Speaker 2: the whole of the city of Wellington, for example. So
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  Speaker 2: we're pushing pretty hard with just the conventional geof thermal
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  Speaker 2: in conjunction with the supercritical.
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  Speaker 1: If we were to double what the Minister says we
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  Speaker 1: should be doing, doubling the production of geothermal energy by
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  Speaker 1: twenty forty how many holes do we need to drill?
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  Speaker 1: You know, how much is this going to cost?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty significant, So doubling our energy and even mercury.
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  Speaker 2: We've got our own sort of goals to actually double
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  Speaker 2: our size by twenty thirty five. So there's a fair
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  Speaker 2: bit of investment, and we're talking billions of dollars and
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  Speaker 2: potentially just the whole of the electricity sect there has
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  Speaker 2: another ten billion dollars worth of investment over the next
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  Speaker 2: five years alone. So that's a significant investment in the industry.
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  Speaker 2: But that's absolutely needed.
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  Speaker 1: And we'll be paying for that through higher prices of electricity.
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  Speaker 2: Qickly, what happens is we taken it part of our
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  Speaker 2: the money we're making an investor back into the sector.
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  Speaker 2: So over the half of the money that we've made
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  Speaker 2: in the last couple of years actually goes back into
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  Speaker 2: new and existing power stations.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, appreciate your time this morning. Stuart Stuart Hamilton, Mercury
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  Speaker 1: Energy Chief Executive on Shane Jones' big geo thermal steam
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  Speaker 1: up yesterday. He was quite excited by this. Interestingly, he
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  Speaker 1: because he got in big trouble the day before, got
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  Speaker 1: the night before when he made his little tweaks to
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  Speaker 1: the oil and gas band reversal, which has taken them
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  Speaker 1: sweet amount of time. But yesterday there was all the
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  Speaker 1: scientists under the sun. We're coming out loving Shane Jones.
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  Speaker 1: What an exciting time, said Isabelle chamber Fought from Energy Futures.
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  Speaker 1: She says, what an exciting time. The strategy lays the
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  Speaker 1: groundwork for a national, forward looking and collective approach to
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  Speaker 1: the next generation of geothermal energy. But just lapping it
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  Speaker 1: up Professor Barry Barton, he says this is a significant
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  Speaker 1: move from the government. Interestingly, he also points out that
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  Speaker 1: there are Maldy stakes in geothermal unresolved claims against the
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  Speaker 1: Crown through the White Tangi Tribunal over geothermal areas, So
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  Speaker 1: what happens there and What does Shane think about all
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  Speaker 1: of that? For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge,
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  Speaker 1: listen live to news Talks it'd be from five am weekdays,
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