Geothermal energy might be the baseload revolution we've been looking for

Summary

Landsvirkjun, which had paid for most of the I.D.D.P. work, decided that it needed financial support to drill more exploratory wells. “We said, ‘We’re just a small energy company in Iceland,’ ” Palsson told me. But it made its research available to the international scientific community, and there has been intermittent interest from the U.K., Germany, Canada, and New Zealand. “That’s where we are now, trying to fund it as a science project that can also benefit the energy industry,” Palsson said.Driving back to the airport, we saw snow ptarmigans and cairns of black stones marking trails that stretched beyond view. Iceland’s transition into a country powered nearly completely by renewables can seem fantastical, and the landscape furthers this impression. Because Iceland is singular in so many ways—that lonely arctic-char species! those small horses with their tölt!—you can get the feeling that geothermal energy is a niche endeavor, as opposed to one that is technically and economically feasible in places where volcanic eruptions aren’t part of the daily forecast. But that feeling is outdated and misleading.Geothermal is underdeveloped, and its upfront costs can be high, but it’s always on and, once it’s set up, it is cheap and enduring. The dream of geothermal energy is to meet humanity’s energy demands affordably, without harnessing horses for horsepower, slaughtering whales for their oil, or burning fossil fuels. The planet’s heat could be used to pasteurize milk or heat dorm rooms or light up a baseball stadium for a night game.At more than five thousand degrees Celsius, the Earth’s core is roughly as hot as the surface of the sun. At the Earth’s surface, the temperature is about fourteen degrees. But in some places, like Iceland, the ground underfoot is much warmer. Hot springs, geysers, and volcanoes are surface-level signs of the Earth’s inferno. Dante’s description of Hell is said by some to have been inspired by the landscape of sulfurous steam plumes found ...