What is geothermal energy from inside the Earth?
Earth's Ancient Fire
What is geothermal energy from inside the Earth?
Deep below your feet — deeper than any basement, deeper than any mine — the inside of our planet is hot. Really, really hot. Hot enough to melt rock into glowing liquid. That heat has been down there since Earth formed, 4.5 billion years ago, and it's not going anywhere. So here's a clever question: can we use it?
We call that underground heat "geothermal energy." Geo means Earth, thermal means heat — so it's Earth-heat-energy, though that sounds clunky. Most of the time, all that heat just sits there, miles down, doing nothing for us. But in a few special places, the heat comes close to the surface. That's where things get interesting.
