Queensland

Queensland has large coastal urban consumption centers and a sunny, geothermally active western hinterland. It also has a relatively young set of coal-fired power plants for which replacement is not as pressing as elsewhere. It also has an electricity grid that stretches far inland in the south and is ideal for hooking up to South Australia.

The first step would to be work toward progressive sidelining of the 500MW Swanbank B power plant, followed by the 1,665 MW Gladstone plant and replacing them with replacement energy sources. These are not hard to find. In addition to hydro and biomass in the north, Queensland also has massive geothermal and solar energy potential. Geothermal prospecting is currently underway in the west of the state in areas suitable for solar power. Colocation opportunities for solar energy abound. The situation is particularly attractive since many of these colocation opportunities are located right along a desirable route for power lines between Moomba/Olympic Dam and Brisbane.

Western Queensland has lots of sun
Southwestern Queensland has abundant
geothermal
They should be harvested in combination and
shipped to the state's east coast population centres

Mining town Mt Isa has been suggested as another location where nuclear power could be generated. Given this, Australia could split its bets with nuclear, building a second set of nuclear plants at Mt Isa to provide electricity for northern Queensland and hydrogen for transport and export and burying nuclear waste in the abundant Outback surrounding the town. Scarce nuclear expertise could be shuttled between the two locations.

Mt Isa in the past has been considered as a suitably
"out the way" place for nuclear power
Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Lastly, Queensland has large supplies of coal seam methane gas, a "free lunch" energy source there for the taking. Existing pipeline infrastructure connects many of the potential coal seam methane production areas in the state to large urban centres such as Gladstone and Brisbane.
Queensland has sunshine, geothermal, gas and coal seam methane energy resources
Many of these resource lie along pathways that could be used in conjunction with solar and geothermal renewables
Source: Techno-Economic Assessment of Power Generation Options for
Australia, Cooperative Research Centre for Coal in Sustainable Development, 2006
Coal Seam Gas In Queensland, Queensland Department of Natural Resources

Taking this logic a bit further, the huge amount of renewable energy and coal seam methane power that could be harvested from the state's western hinterlands could conceivably power large pipelines that could bring fresh water supplies from the Wet Tropics to the parched southeastern cities of the state. This would solve both the state's energy and water problems in one fell swoop while encouraging inland regional development.