Geothermal has always sounded like a niche power source for places with volcanoes and boiling mud pools but this week’s Net Hero Podcast shows why that idea may be badly out of date.
I sat down with Dr Laura Chiaramonte from the Electric Power Research Institute, EPRI, to talk about why the next wave of geothermal is not just about Iceland or the Ring of Fire and why deeper underground heat could make it far more useful and widespread.
Laura told me the old model is only part of the picture. “Conventional geothermal is in the areas where the heat you can find is closer to the surface. There is a lot of water and the rock is very broken. So this water can circulate inside, the rocks get heated and when you extract it to the surface you can generate electricity.”
That is the classic version people understand, built around volcanic zones where the heat is easy to reach.
But the bit that really matters is what comes next. Laura explained, “There is this big phase that we are seeing now about broader geothermal. A lot of this innovation is making it available for you to go deeper and away from these areas, the volcanoes and the Ring of Fire, to actually find this heat.”
That is the shift. The heat is there almost everywhere. The challenge is drilling deeper, faster and cheaper to reach it.
“The heat is everywhere in the subsurface. But perhaps you do not have so much fluid and you do not have the rocks so broken. So this is what started this new wave, where you can engineer the subsurface to make sure that you can replicate the system in which you can extract this heat to generate electricity.”
In other words, geothermal is moving from being location-led to technology-led.
What makes it so attractive is that it is always on. Laura told me geothermal can deliver “a capacity of almost 90%” and called it “a firm baseload clean type of energy.” That is a serious advantage in a world trying to balance wind and solar with reliable supply.
She was honest that questions remain over cost, drilling depth and long term economics. But the direction is clear.
Geothermal is no longer just a story about volcanoes. It is a story about what sits beneath our feet and whether we are finally learning how to use it.
Listen to the full conversation on the Net Hero Podcast now and please subscribe.
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