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?
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The earth’s crust is highly variable when it comes to thickness. The deepest hole ever dug into the earth was 12km deep and did not reach temperatures high enough to power a steam generator which is how thermal power is created. In most places on earth it is either not cost effective/possible to do it hence why you only find geothermic power generation in areas of high volcanic activity (iceland) where the heat is close enough to the surface to make it possible.
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