UK brings back deep geothermal energy after four decades of hiatus

After almost 40 years of hiatus, deep geothermal energy is making a comeback in the UK, thanks to the Eden Project in Cornwall, a botanical and ecosystem diversity resort in south-west England.

This resort, dominated by two huge geodesic domes next to each other and home to thousands of plant species, will use the hot water reservoirs on which it sits, almost 5 kilometres underground, to provide the necessary heating for its greenhouses and its two biomes: one Mediterranean and the other jungle.

Once operational, the Eden Project well will be the only deep geothermal installation in the UK, as traditional geothermal projects in the country tend to rely on shallow wells that extract heat from relatively lower temperature sources.

A UK government white paper assessing the very high potential of deep geothermal for domestic heating and power generation is expected to be published in the coming weeks.