Subscribe to the Elements free mailing list for more like this

Yes. Visualizations are free to share and post in their original form across the web—even for publishers. Please link back to this page and attribute Visual Capitalist.

Licenses are required for some commercial uses, translations, or layout modifications. You can even whitelabel our visualizations. Explore your options.

Click here to license this visualization.
A Visual Crash Course on Geothermal Energy
This was originally posted on Elements. Sign up to the free mailing list to get beautiful visualizations on natural resource megatrends in your email every week.
Geothermal is a lesser-known type of renewable energy that uses heat from the Earth’s molten core to produce electricity.
While this unique feature gives it key benefits over solar and wind, it also suffers from high costs and geographic restrictions. Because of this, few countries have managed to produce geothermal energy at scale.
In this infographic, we’ve used a combination of diagrams and charts to give you a high level overview of this sustainable energy source.
How Geothermal Works
Geothermal energy is produced by accessing reservoirs of hot water that are found several miles below the earth’s surface. In certain parts of the planet, this water naturally breaks through the surface, creating what’s known as a hot spring (or in some cases, a geyser).
When accessed via a well, this pressurized (Read more...)