Aug 15 - United Press International

Australia's geothermal, or hot rock, energy resources could generate 10 percent of the nation's electricity supply, a report says.

A new report by the Center for International Economics estimates recoverable hot rock resources across Australia equates to the national power consumption for 450 years, and could inject $10 billion Australian (USD7.65 billion) into the economy by 2030.

CIE spokesman Kerry Barwise says using hot rock alternative energy would also benefit the environment. Hot rocks enable you to generate electricity without the emission of carbon dioxide -- in fact without any emissions, he said.

The report says Australian geothermal resources in the Cooper Basin, which straddles the state borders of New South Wales and Queensland, are 60 times greater than provided by the massive Snowy River hydroelectricity dam and 12 times the gas reserves of the North West Shelf.

The thing about hot rock technology is that it uses all the components that are in existence today ... standard mining and generation technologies, there's nothing new about them, Barwise says.