Geothermal Heating

The Significance of Geothermal Heating

What is Geothermal Heat

The use of the Earth 's natural resources such as fishing , harvesting and mining , have greatly contributed to development of powerhouse economies today . However , among all those sources , possibly one of the safest and most useful is the use of geothermal energy or geothermal heat

Geothermal heat is basically the heat that is generated beneath the surface of the earth . This type of heat energy is also renewable through the water cycle where the heat from the earth 's surface evaporates water

br and subsequently brings it back to earth in the form of rain

The use of geothermal heat can be traced to the ancient times , when people such as Romans and Chinese directly use hot springs to bathe cook and heat other objects . In certain cultures , geothermal heat is believed to have a natural healing capability which is the reason why a lot of people bathe on hot springs even up to this day . At present geothermal heat has a number of uses which include generating electricity , heating of spas , and controlling building temperatures through geothermal heat pumps , among others

Concrete examples of the machines that are powered by geothermal energy include geothermal power plants , which use steam or hot water wells beneath the earth 's surface to produce electricity , and geothermal heat pumps , which transfer heat below the ground to buildings or houses . On the other hand , during hot seasons , the geothermal heat plants reverse the process to cool buildings and houses instead of heating them . Moreover , the since geothermal heat is renewable and natural , using it would not harm the earth 's environment . In addition as compared to burning of fuel to produce electricity , geothermal heat produces very few chemicals which are toxic to the human body and the environment as well Geothermal Heat : Then and Now

According to Mary Dickson and Mario Fanelli 's research , What is Geothermal Energy , the presence of volcanoes and hot springs during led our ancestors to theorize that the Earth 's interior was hot . However , it was not until a later period of time that an actual excavation was done to determine the temperature beneath the Earth 's surface

Based on the research , in 1740 , a French man named De Gensanne was the first one to use a thermometer to measure the heat below the surface in a mine in France . In 1870 , advancements to study the Earth 's interior were made , however , it was only during the twentieth century during the discovery of radiogenic heat that scientists were able to devise strong theories on the history of the Earth 's interior temperature . Radiogenic heat is basically the heat produced by the decay of certain elements such as uranium , thorium , and potassium which are all present in the Earth 's interior and greatly contributed to its massive heat

Moreover , based on the Dickson 's and Fanelli 's research during the 1980 's , it was theorized that there 's no balance between the...