• Salt deposit older than dinosaurs could become Australia’s largest energy reserve A $31 million drilling effort is exploring whether ancient salt caverns can become Australia’s clean energy backbone. • Beneath the dusty plains of outback Queensland, under towns that depend on a single reliable water source, lies a rock formation so old it predates the dinosaurs. • For decades, it sat largely ignored, invisible at the surface and buried under other basins. • Now, scientists believe this hidden geology, the Adavale Basin, could help solve one of Australia’s most urgent clean energy dilemmas, i.e., where to store renewable power at a truly massive scale. • “The Adavale Basin is under-explored yet is known to contain resources that can contribute to Australia’s emissions reductions and modern energy needs,” a report from the Australian government notes. • Australia is producing more electricity from solar and wind than ever before, but there is a catch.
Article Summaries:
- Scientists have drilled a 3‑kilometre borehole in Queensland’s under‑explored Adavale Basin, uncovering a thick layer of Boree salt that could serve as a massive underground hydrogen storage site. The $31 million Geoscience Australia campaign produced a 976‑metre core and identified the salt deposit as the only known eastern Australian layer thick enough to create caverns for hydrogen or compressed air. Storing renewable‑generated hydrogen in such salt caverns would allow Australia to balance intermittent solar and wind supply, potentially making the basin the country’s largest clean‑energy reserve. The project highlights a new, geological‑scale approach to grid‑scale energy storage.
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