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A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circulation through faults to hot rock deep in the Earth's crust .
Geothermal energy has been exploited as a source of heat and/or electric power for millennia. Geothermal heating, using water from hot springs, for example, has been used for bathing since Paleolithic times and for space heating since Roman times. Geothermal power (generation of electricity from geothermal energy), has been used since the 20th ...
Geothermal activity is a group of natural heat transfer processes, occurring on Earth's surface, caused by the presence of excess heat in the subsurface of the affected area, usually caused by the presence of an igneous intrusion underground. [1]
Geothermal energy is a type of renewable energy that encourages conservation of natural resources. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency , geo-exchange systems save homeowners 30–70 percent in heating costs, and 20–50 percent in cooling costs, compared to conventional systems. [ 29 ]
Geothermal energy can be either used directly to heat homes, as is common in Iceland where almost all of its energy is renewable, or to generate electricity. At smaller scales, geothermal power can be generated with geothermal heat pumps , which can extract heat from ground temperatures of under 30 °C (86 °F), allowing them to be used at ...
Geothermal power is considered to be sustainable because the heat extraction is small compared to the Earth's heat content, but extraction must still be monitored to avoid local depletion. [7] Although geothermal sites are capable of providing heat for many decades, individual wells may cool down or run out of water.
Although often confused with the relatively limited hydrothermal resource already commercialized to a large extent, HDR geothermal energy is very different. [3] Whereas hydrothermal energy production can exploit hot fluids already in place in Earth's crust, an HDR system (consisting of the pressurized HDR reservoir, the boreholes drilled from the surface, and the surface injection pumps and ...
Earth's internal heat travels along geothermal gradients and powers most geological processes. [3] It drives mantle convection, plate tectonics, mountain building, rock metamorphism, and volcanism. [2] Convective heat transfer within the planet's high-temperature metallic core is also theorized to sustain a geodynamo which generates Earth's ...