Di
Direct thermal plus electricity.
Simple, except it's not.
Efficiency?
all the red areas have accessible temperature at around 240 degrees Celsius or higher.
just like solar, the quantities of energy available are basically unfathomable, but when i last did a back of envelope check, a single lease could expand to fulfill Australia's entire electricity production. but the initial hurdles are high, incremental additions are low.
anyway, using simple tech, heat can be boosted, if the 'cool' sink remains hot, so boosting heat from 240C up to 500C is not a big deal if the cool side is still 240C, Carnot efficiency rules determine outcomes, so this will not improve electricity generating outcomes, but for a direct thermal process, Sweet.
point is, just as solar cells are a viable way to access solar fusion, deep wells are a way to access internal radiogenic heat sources. there is no need for nuclear power plants be, they fission or fusion
its simpler just to drill a shorter hole and crack the methane, but lets be real, the resource is there, and is truly massive, just as there is no practical limit to amount of electricity australia could generate from solar PV, there is also no practical limit to the amount of 500C heat australia could generate from geothermal. but what use is it, when it is a stranded asset in the middle of a nowhere desert?
i dont know about other countries geothermal resource, but Japan has a lot of history with volcanic geothermal (as opposed to non volcanic geothermal in australia)