ABSTRACT
As the above quote demonstrates, the vision of utilizing the Earth’s internal heat to benefit the world is not new. It has long been recognized that energy, in the form of heat, is constantly radiating from the Earth’s surface into space. Some of that energy is solar energy that has been absorbed by soil and rock and reradiated as infrared radiation. But on average about 1% of that energy radiating into space is from the Earth itself. Although it may seem insignificant, in fact the amount of heat energy the Earth contains is staggering-there is enough heat energy in the subsurface to satisfy the energy needs of every nation of the world many times over.
