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Speaker 1: The government is funding further research into supercritical geothermal technology.

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Speaker 1: What is that, Well, it's like geothermal power generation, only

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Speaker 1: drilled deeper into the earth where the temperature and the

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Speaker 1: pressure are both higher. If the research works out, it

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Speaker 1: could provide more power than the Huntly power station. It's

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Speaker 1: just the country's largest a GNS and NB are leading

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Speaker 1: the work. Doctor Isabel Chamberfore is the lead geothermal scientist

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Speaker 1: and she's with us this morning. Good morning, good morning,

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Speaker 1: thanks for being with me. First of all, how deep

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Speaker 1: do you have to drill to get the hottest stuff?

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Speaker 2: So actually not really done, much deeper than your normal

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Speaker 2: gil term all. Well, because in the TVZ of a

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Speaker 2: normal heat transfer if you want all the TVs that

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Speaker 2: what I call the TVZ is this vulcany carry out

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Speaker 2: stop if you want, so you're going down to a

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Speaker 2: kilometer deeper, two kilometer deeper, which you're wrong, four sol

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Speaker 2: to six kilometer.

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Speaker 1: How much hotter is it there and how much more

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Speaker 1: energy can you get out of it?

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Speaker 2: So the heat is transported with the water that's circulated

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Speaker 2: in the crush, right, So it's generally around three hundred

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Speaker 2: and thirty degree maximum in your normal geutomal systems. So

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Speaker 2: it is by going a little bit deeper, so a

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Speaker 2: kilometer or two deeper, we can reach temperature both four

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Speaker 2: under degree programs or for fifty and that is a

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Speaker 2: lot more energy that we can access per well.

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Speaker 1: And presumably you will need different machinery, stronger machinery.

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Speaker 2: Do we have it? So yes, it's been drilled both conditions,

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Speaker 2: has been drilled in the past, and not in New Zealand,

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Speaker 2: but in the world, in Iceland, Japan or the US.

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Speaker 2: I've already drilled in those conditions, a real rig that

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Speaker 2: can go at those deaths. It's really common in all

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Speaker 2: in gas fields. So we do have the drill rig

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Speaker 2: that can drill that. The key challenge is to design

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Speaker 2: a well that will be sustaining those higher temperature and

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Speaker 2: pressure conditions. But it is an engineering problemingly and not

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Speaker 2: necessarily a true science problem to be solved.

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Speaker 1: All right, Thanks so much for that, Doctor Isabelle chamber

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Speaker 1: Four with US genius science lead for geo Thermal. The

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Speaker 1: government basically Shane Jones and who is it, Shane Jones

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Speaker 1: and Judith Collins giving sixty million dollars to try and

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Speaker 1: drill deeper and get three times as much energy out.

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Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.

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Speaker 1: Listen live to News Talks it Be from five am weekdays,

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