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

Pressure.
The deeper you go, the higher the pressure, and drilling becomes complicated, expensive and slow.
[Russians tried to drill and didn’t get “that far”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole)

Recently, there’s been news of a [geotermal drilling technology](https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/testing-starts-on-potentially-disruptive-geothermal-drilling-technology/#:~:text=Millimeter%20Wave%20Drilling,to%20create%20ever%20deeper%20holes.) that could potentially drill deep enough to tap into that energy.