eli5: If we’re all sitting above the magma and heat in Earth’s mantle, what are the barriers to tapping that heat in each municipality to provide local affordable electricity?

Question

eli5: If we’re all sitting above the magma and heat in Earth’s mantle, what are the barriers to tapping that heat in each municipality to provide local affordable electricity?

In: 43

Answer 1

The principle barrier is rock. Lots of rock that’s very difficult to drill through. You have a few places on the planet where there’s magma near the surface (most of it at the bottom of the ocean, and on volcanic islands), but for most of the land mass of the world, you have a couple of miles of rock to drill through.