What is Geothermal heat?

Geothermal heat is like having a warm blanket under your bed that never stops warming you up.

Imagine you're sitting on a cozy couch, and someone turns on a heater underneath it, you don’t even feel the heater, but you start to get warmer and warmer. That’s kind of how geothermal heat works! Deep inside the Earth, there’s heat from when the planet was formed long ago, and from molten rock that moves around like lava.

Think about holding a hot potato, it warms your hands up. Now imagine that hot potato is inside the Earth, and instead of just warming one hand, it warms up the whole planet!

This heat can come out through cracks in the ground or even make hot springs or geysers, like when you go to a park with bubbling water.

Sometimes we dig down to get that heat and use it to warm our homes, just like how you might use a blanket on a cold night. That’s why people say geothermal energy is like having a warm hug from the Earth itself!