People & Blogs
Did you know: The same tech that drills for oil and gas can be used to tap into clean energy?
Deep beneath the Earth sits 50,000 times more energy than all the world’s fossil fuel reserves, but accessing it requires using the same controversial technology that oil companies spent trillions to develop: fracking. Cindy Taff left Shell to prove that drilling for geothermal heat instead of hydrocarbons can deliver what solar, wind and fossil fuels…
@JamisonMaguire-r8k
March 20, 2026 at 4:10 pm
There are lots of ‘possibilities’ but nothing is going to replace oil and gas.
@bryandewkett7953
March 20, 2026 at 4:11 pm
It’s not profitable. Greed is against these ideas.
@commodore64boy
March 20, 2026 at 4:11 pm
The difference in depth required isn’t trivial. The depth at which most areas of the world would need to drill IS the issue and the reason is not done (its not feasible)
@gstein123
March 20, 2026 at 4:14 pm
Too bad they all still need oil to be manufactured, maintained, and to run properly.
@timkarsten8610
March 20, 2026 at 4:14 pm
Underground Rotor Energy storage running upright. Good air, magnetic bearings.
@diggzee
March 20, 2026 at 4:16 pm
Thats great that you have solved the energy problem that, for some reason, we just choose not to use it.
Now tell me how you replace all the products we produce with petroleum?
@frankvonfrauner
March 20, 2026 at 4:16 pm
Geothermal is inefficient and it is not portable.
To retrofit every existing city with geothermal energy would be so monumental it would take centuries.
It’s always the most uninformed people that resort to conspiracy theories whenever they think they understand something.
@adzstanyer3000
March 20, 2026 at 4:17 pm
sounds like the place where the earth cracks when those abandoned satellites fall back to earth! haha
@revaddict
March 20, 2026 at 4:20 pm
Am I the only one confused with this video? She’s talking about energy storage and you’re talking about generation.
I have no idea how she intends to store the energy. Geothermal energy can be generated by heat. The current problem is it gets extremely expensive and complicated the deeper we go. New ideas are currently being tested to help us drill deeper.
@bdub1338
March 20, 2026 at 4:23 pm
You don’t even stop and think about those poor oil executives do you
@royr1016
March 20, 2026 at 4:25 pm
Of course the Oil Tycoons and Dump don’t want it!
@Dan-ow9bs
March 20, 2026 at 4:29 pm
Or just use some good old nuclear reactors?…..or course, modern versions….
@Bilkyhits
March 20, 2026 at 4:30 pm
Funny story, we can.
That would be nice…
@JamesSullivan-ru4op
March 20, 2026 at 4:41 pm
What happens when we remove the heat from the earth? That heat helps keep the core molten.
@JohnWedow
March 20, 2026 at 4:44 pm
Considering the very possible validity of the idea that our planet is constantly making oil . Most of the proof needn’t be scientific . It is not the marketing plan of corporate business .
@monkeyman1282
March 20, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Interesting
@davidgillies620
March 20, 2026 at 4:51 pm
Geothermal is appallingly hard to engineer at scale. If it could be done more cheaply than petroleum and with the same infrastructure then we’d be doing it already. You don’t need to invoke a conspiracy.
@martina.8720
March 20, 2026 at 4:54 pm
You can’t. Oil/gas is required
@rainmind
March 20, 2026 at 5:08 pm
I think if there was a cleaner, cheaper way to get energy China would have already done it and would be exploiting it at full capacity. As of today it is the Middle East for the entire world. That is why you’ll see plenty of warships there for months.
@dougewald243
March 20, 2026 at 5:24 pm
Every time deep enough drilling is done to get at oil and gas they run into heat. Geothermal heat – how long have they been ignoring this obvious energy source?
Why?
One reason…
It’s always the same answer.
$$$$
Geothermal doesn’t have to constantly be explored for & doesn’t run out, therefore doesn’t make as much money.
@Kimberly-d3e1c
March 20, 2026 at 5:27 pm
Duhhhh…
I’ve been saying this for at least 10 – 20 YEARS.
@IainMcClatchie
March 20, 2026 at 5:29 pm
In the 1800s, we didn’t really drill for oil. There were a few places where the stuff just came out of the ground. Super low effort to collect. Those places got depleted first, then other, less easy oil came out, and now we’ve developed fracking technology and CO2 injection to strip oil out from solid formations deep underground. It’s expensive ($50/barrel), but that’s okay because oil has enormous stable demand, and oil is *energy dense*.
Underground rocks are hot, because the center of the Earth has had a bunch of Uranium and Thorium decaying for billions of years. We can mine that heat just like we mine oil. (The heat depletes over time, and you have to drill new wells as you take the heat out of the initial rock body.)
The difference is that a cubic meter of hot, high pressure steam has thousands of times less energy than a cubic meter of oil. That means it’s worth thousands of times less.
Geothermal works where the heat is really easy to get at. There are places like this, and geothermal is profitable there, and that’s good business and good for the environment. But there aren’t a lot of places like this, and you can’t use expensive techniques to mine heat and make money.
Subsidies for businesses that don’t make money are called charity. And charity is better spent on all the other things you know it’s better spent on (i.e. baseline food, health, education and security).
@MaryamSouri-k5f
March 22, 2026 at 7:14 pm
Hi
@RickChapman-c8e
March 20, 2026 at 7:03 pm
fossil fuel companies won’t make any money if people use clean energy. This is the only reason why Trump is in power.
@gaia8888
March 20, 2026 at 8:37 pm
😂😂
@dear-future-ai
March 20, 2026 at 8:41 pm
Nuclear. It just costs less money to start up, and the rich losers, who pride money over lives and efficiency, who lack community values and have an austere adherence to outdated virtues we now call corporate greed don’t wanna invest in it.
@dear-future-ai
March 20, 2026 at 8:44 pm
Pardon the wordiness TED censored what I actually wanted to write, so my insult must become verbose.
@Albert16666
March 20, 2026 at 9:55 pm
Me focusing on the video ❌ Me focusing with her eyes ✅✅
@Ruben-li4dt
March 21, 2026 at 7:34 am
1. if you pump it up, it becomes a fossil reesource. a fossil fuel!
2. if you have steamy water from under ground, it now ads that water above ground.
3. if you go to the sauna, they don’t pour co2 on those glowing coals to make it warm, they pour some water to make the athmosphere warmer.
So if you added more water to the same athmosphere, and you let it steam, you gain a greenhouse effect not even the groceries like.
@danielbertola7868
March 21, 2026 at 12:49 pm
Regardless, it all boils water to spin turbines. Oil, gas, nuclear,…. just making steam to spin turbines. There has to be something else… and no I have zero ideas. Too dumb.
@SantiagoBejaranoGonzález
March 21, 2026 at 6:44 pm
Nuclear?
@FIGHTTHECABLE
March 21, 2026 at 6:48 pm
Only if the earth geology doesn’t start setting off earth quakes line it has happened in Switzerland. The project was stopped after that happened.
@andreasgransson928
March 23, 2026 at 2:38 am
Too expensive.
@MileHighDriverGuy
March 23, 2026 at 1:09 pm
Wow! So easy! Just like that! 😂