How about using more geothermal heat to produce electricity.

[Mendeli]

It just today hit me in the head. we're burning coal, we're burning wood, we're burning swamp material and we're even using nuclear reactions to produce heat and electricity... when all we would really need to do is look down and find a great source of heat. (edit: ha ha. look even further down than that, you funny guy)

Why isn't there a geothermal powerplant in every mineshaft? Why aren't we digging down more holes to heat our water, get out some steam and produce electricity with no artificial pollution involved.

Let me guess. Money.

Frustrating.

[Darat]

Money in the sense that those ways of extracting energy are not economically viable compared to say burning petrochemicals.

Iceland does generate a lot of power via geothermal sources (http://www.energy.rochester.edu/is/reyk/history.htm).

[jj]

Geothermal power is problematic in a number of ways. It works best in very unstable areas, where the wells/shafts are both dangerous to make and hard to keep intact. It works best in volcanic areas where the steam that results is likely to be nearly as acid as battery acid. The steam contains water (not superheated), it contains particulates, it's hard on trubines that way, too.

If it's not in a volcanic area, you have to go way, way deep to get any useful thermal gradient.

[Deetee]

It would not be economically viable. Geothermal plants come in 2 main categories - those that utilise the heat directly or indirectly to warm spaces such as pools, homes, greenhouses etc or where industrial space heating is needed (eg drying vegetables/fruit), and those that use heated water/steam to generate electricity. Both are expensive to develop and maintain, and cannot always find applications in countries with more readily accessible sources of geothermal energy.
The amount of enthalpy gleaned from UK sources would be too low to utilise in any beneficial way.
This paper (http://iga.igg.cnr.it/geo/geoenergy.php) details various systems and applications.

[Raphael]

EERE: Geothermal Technologies Program Home Page (http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/)

According to the Geothermal Energy Association (http://www.geo-energy.org/publications/reports.asp)
Geothermal accounts for .35% of annual US power generation (2004).As a percentage of total generation Hawaii is highest with 20%, and in terms of total generation California is highest with two and a half megawatts per annum (4.8%).