Why don’t we use more geothermal energy?

Geothermal energy is renewable, reliable and powerful. So, why is most of it untapped? That’s what our listener, Anna in the UK, wants to know. Full disclosure, she’s a geologist and is thoroughly perplexed by the lack of uptake. Geothermal is renewable, reliable and abundant and yet, less than 1% of the world’s energy is generated from it.

Host Graihagh Jackson hears about a team in Iceland who hope to "super-charge" geothermal power by drilling directly into volcanic magma. And she travels to Germany to visit Vulcan Energy, a company which is combining geothermal with extracting one of the world's most sought-after metals: Lithium.

Plus, our reporter in Indonesia tells Graihagh about local opposition to some geothermal power plants.

The programme was first broadcast in 2024.

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Host: Graihagh Jackson
Reporter in Indonesia: Johanes Hutabarat
Producer: Osman Iqbal
Sound Mix: James Beard and Tom Brignell
Editor: Simon Watts