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Sounds too good to be true! Is geothermal truly renewable? Or is it just abundant enough that it would last us for thousands of years? I wonder if there are oth

• layer8 4y ago
  Read here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy#Renewability_and_sustainability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy#Renewability... It should probably last until the sun becomes a red giant. (And earth will have lost its atmosphere long before that.)
• telchar 4y ago
  Most geothermal heat is produced by nuclear decay in subsurface radioisotopes vs gravitational/frictional source or residual heat of planetary formation, so it's effectively renewable at any kind of level of extraction that we might feasibly be able to make use of. "About 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) below the Earth’s crust, or surface, is the hottest part of our planet: the core. A small portion of the core’s heat comes from the friction and gravitational pull formed when Earth was created more than 4 billion years ago. However, the vast majority of Earth’s heat is constantly generated by the decay of radioactive isotopes, such as potassium-40 and thorium-232."[0] [0] https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/geothermal-energy https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/geothermal...
  • jacobsimon 4y ago
    Interesting! This might be my favorite type of energy now :D