Geothermal power sheds its hot-spring roots
Geothermal energy, long a poor relation among the more glamorous renewable technologies of wind and solar power, is poised to smarten its dowdy image. Piping-hot underground water and steam, percolating up through fissures in rocks fractured by seismic activity, have been a welcome feature of the European landscape since the Romans popularized bathing. On the other side of the globe, the Japanese have luxuriated since the Heian era in hot-spring onsen that dot their volcanic and quake-strewn archipelago. Even so, as a source of renewable energy, geothermal electricity has gone largely ignored as fortunes have been heaped on its rivals.
There is, much to like about geothermal energy. It is reasonably clean; leaves behind little in the way of waste; does not suffer the vagaries of the weather or the inevitability of sunset; makes the tiniest of footprints on the land; and is pretty well inexhaustible. Above all, it is more or less free for the taking. Yet, lacking the political clout of wind and solar power, geothermal electricity has never received the attention it deserves.