Shallow heated Rock: The power beneath our feet

The power beneath our feet - smh.com.au:
by Tim Flannery -- Sept 26, 2005
"The heat had been generated by the natural radioactivity of the granite, which had been kept in place by a blanket of sediment nearly four kilometres thick. What really excited the geologists was that the granite was not in a region where the Earth's crust was being torn apart, but where it was being compressed. This led to horizontal, rather than vertical, fracturing of the rock. Even better, the rocks are bathed in superheated water under great pressure, and the horizontal fracturing meant that it could be readily recycled.
This one rock body in South Australia is estimated to contain enough heat to supply all Australia's power needs for 75 years, at a cost equivalent to that of brown coal, without the carbon dioxide emissions. So vast is the resource that distance to market is no object, for power can be pumped down the power line in such volume as to overcome any transmission losses."