To Save the Planet, Start Digging

[Music]

Gideon Lichfield: Lauren, have you ever met someone with an idea that seems completely out there, and then when you talk to them they convince you it’s actually totally reasonable, and then a little while later you find yourself thinking it’s still outlandish, but you actually can’t explain why.

Lauren Goode: Yes. I work in media.

[Laughter]

Lauren Goode: So we encounter people like this.

Gideon Lichfield: Happens every day.

Lauren Goode: All the time. Yeah. But are you telling me that’s what happened to you and Jamie Beard?

Gideon Lichfield: That’s right. I’m finding myself in this weird head space where I simultaneously think her ideas about geothermal energy are absolutely wild and obviously absolutely right at the same time.

Lauren Goode: But how does it actually work? So, you take that heat from the core of the Earth, you somehow tap it to power electricity plants instead of using fossil fuels or wind or solar.

Gideon Lichfield: Yeah. You’ve got it. Exactly.

Lauren Goode: OK.

Gideon Lichfield: And it’s an inexhaustible resource. It would take 17 billion years for the heat at…