Last night's comments by Peter Garrett as transcribed from the...

Last night's comments by Peter Garrett as transcribed from the abc
"TONY JONES: I'll come on to the carbon trading initiative in a moment. Let's stick with the fact that you are now effectively picking winners among renewable energy technologies and Kevin Rudd makes geothermal sound like the holy grail of renewable energy: clean, secure, reliable, base load power that could be up and running in a couple of years. Is that realistic?

PETER GARRETT: Well it's very clear that we've got tremendous prospects in geothermal and there's been a number of particular developments that we've seen, particularly in South Australia, but also in Victoria. The fact that it offers up effectively a long-term source of clean energy and Australia has got this sort of dry rocks resource just sitting there -

TONY JONES: Just quickly, for those viewers who don't understand what that means, just quickly explain, very briefly, what it actually is.

PETER GARRETT: We've got very hot rocks deep below the Earth's surface, sometimes as far down as three or four kilometres. If you drill down into those hot rocks and then have a drill down so you've got access to water you can actually produce steam out of that, the steam can turn a turbine and the turbine can produce energy. I mean, it's pretty much as simple as that. There are some technical difficulties and challenges there, but those people who are keen on getting Australia into geothermal say we've got this great access to resource and one of the things, interestingly, that's held them back is not having the capacity the put the drilling plants in place. And so what we intend this $50 million to go towards is to provide a one for one dollars. Match $1 from us, $1 from the industry so that they can get these drilling rigs on to site and really get the best sites identified and get the industry going.

TONY JONES: Tim Flannery is one of the leading advocates for power from hot rocks. He told us earlier this year the country should be put on a war footing, that the Government should create something like a Snowy Mountain scheme and put a giant power grid based on these geothermal outputs that reaches across the whole country. He thinks it could power the whole country. Do you share that vision?

PETER GARRETT: Well, I certainly think that it's got tremendous potential. Look, one of the things about meeting our energy needs, particularly as we need to reduce emissions urgently, is that there'll be a suite of different needs to do that and geothermal is one of the ones that Australia has a great resource in. We've got it in abundance and the technology, once we can overcome some of the short-term barriers, I think offers up the potential to really deliver in the long-term.


It goes on, check out the whole file at abc.com.au

The importance of this development should not be lost on investors. We now have the ALP on record wanting to develop the industry and poutting our money into drilling holes. Fantastic. I bet the Libs will come up with something pro- geothermal in short time as well.
All this spotlights the industry and the potential that it has for base load electricity generation. This rally is just another small start. Traders can make a quid, but if you buy and hold this stock will make you very rich. Have enough of them and the stock could change your life.
Need to be patient thought. Lots of water yet to go under the brideg.
Garretts statement is a wake-up call to ALL energy investors - not just the buyers of fringe small cap fledgling energy plays.
Watch this space.
The ethical funds will be jumping at these stocks soon.