Dhe most reliable heating system that doesn’t care about the position of the sun, oil boilers or gas pipelines is at our feet, and always has been. Around 6000 degrees Celsius are said to prevail in the interior of the earth. Even the biggest Jules Verne enthusiasts can no longer use this as travel weather, but the further away the earth’s core and the earth’s surface moves, the cooler it gets. The thermometer drops by three degrees every 100 meters. And so those who drill just a few kilometers deep can find an almost inexhaustible heat source with a more comfortable 100 to 200 degrees – suitable for heating houses or generating electricity with steam turbines.
It is often said that geothermal energy is the sleeping giant of the energy transition. It is more reliable and environmentally friendly than almost any other energy technology, but a whole range of challenges stand in its way. One of them, perhaps the biggest: the investment costs. But that’s exactly what a new drilling technique could push. Or much more, it could reduce the risk of investing heavily and ending up empty-handed.