Australia funds sustainable energy boost for super telescope bid 16 June 2010 Australia is investing $47.3 million in the country’s largest direct heat geothermal facility in Western Australia to ensure sustainable energy is available for Australia’s bid to host the $2.5 billion Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope, which will be the world’s largest. Sustainable energy is considered an important aspect of this project. Because of this funding, infrastructure being built to support the bid will now have clean energy generation systems. Key infrastructure includes: - The Pawsey High-Performance Computing Centre in Kensington, Perth, which will use hot sedimentary aquifers to provide cooling and ventilation. This will be the largest direct geothermal demonstrator in Australia, with 10MWth.
- The Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) at the key site in the remote Shire of Murchison, Western Australia, will now use a full-scale solar-storage-diesel energy generation system.
Construction on the energy generation projects will commence later this year. In announcing the clean energy funding, the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, and the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Kim Carr, said that this investment could cut energy costs by $5 million per year. Australia has demonstrated a strong commitment to the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope bid with a number of previous important investments, including $100 million for the SKA Pathfinder. The new telescope is expected to have a discovery potential ten thousand times greater than any existing radio telescopes, and will be used to explore the origin of the universe, the nature of dark matter, and the existence of life outside earth. A decision will be made in a few years’ time on the location of the new giant radio telescope; Australia-New Zealand and Southern Africa are under consideration. More information |