4 ms·
As long as the heat is not turned into other forms of energy (electricity, potential energy, chemical energy, etc.), it is actually not being "used". Just moved
by samus 3y ago
As long as the heat is not turned into other forms of energy (electricity, potential energy, chemical energy, etc.), it is actually not being "used". Just moved to a slightly different place. Such usage actually wouldn't speed up cooling off the Earth even by a miniscule amount since the heat is at the surface already.
- adrian_b 3y agoWhile in Iceland good sources of heat may be close to the surface, so exploiting them may not change a lot the cooling speed of the Earth, in most places in order to obtain enough geothermal energy the heat must be brought from high depth and its use is equivalent with significantly reducing the thermal resistance of the upper layer of Earth's crust at that point, increasing the speed at which the Earth is cooling.
- avar 3y agoThe deepest borehole ever drilled is just over 12km, it's 6371km to the Earth's core. If the Earth was the size of a basketball that would get you around 1/8th of a millimeter into the surface. The reason geothermal's easier in Iceland is that the heat's close to the surface, so you can get away with shallower boreholes. I'd think the overall effect would be trivial either way, but I don't see how the thickness of the crust would make a difference.