Deserts could generate enough renewable energy to power Australia, in the process creating unprecedented opportunities for its remote communities, a leading scientist says. Dr Barrie Pittock, a lead author with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and former head of CSIRO's climate impact group, says deserts could also create a substantial clean energy export industry focused on Asia.

He today will tell an Alice Springs deserts symposium that Australia is better placed to develop clean energy than almost any other nation, mainly due to its capacity for large-scale solar and geothermal power plants. "If you look at a map of solar radiation reaching the Earth, then Australia is the continental area that has the greatest intensity of sunlight because we have the desert region," Dr Pittock said yesterday.

"There is a huge potential. If you had all of the intensity of the sun over a 50-kilometre area, you could supply all of Australia's electricity." Dr Pittock will call for solar thermal power plants to be built near regional communities, particularly job-starved indigenous communities, to meet the Federal Government's 2020 target of 20% of energy coming from renewable sources.

He cites engineering firm WorleyParsons' plans to build the world's largest solar thermal plant in Australia by 2011, and another 33 large-scale solar thermal plants by 2020. Dr Pittock also envisaged a viable geothermal industry. More than 30 companies are investing in transforming the heat from rocks hundreds of metres underground into electricity.

It will require billions of dollars of government spending on infrastructure to link clean power stations to the electricity grid. But it would be cheaper than developing nuclear power or building coal-fired power stations, Dr Pittock said. "If you go up to Darwin you could run something like the Basslink undersea connector to link with the Indonesian grid and you could supply Indonesia with electricity," he said.

About 1% of Australia's electricity comes from renewable sources. Government climate adviser Ross Garnaut has recommended widening the $20 billion Building Australia Fund to cover new energy infrastructure.

(The Age, 05/11/2008)