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