There are many sources of alternative power. The ones that you probably already know about are wind and solar and to tell you the truth they are extremely underestimated though that is an article for another day. Then there are the lesser known alternative power sources such as wave and tidal power which take power from the ocean. However there is one source of alternative power which is clean renewable, easily harnessed, and nearly limitless. It is called Geothermal Energy.

The name Geothermal comes form the Greek words Geo and Thermal which mean earth and heat so geothermal means earth heat and this is exactly what geothermal is. The heat that comes form the earth.

People burn fossil fuels and biomass in order to harness the heat energy. However this is inefficient and is also a limited source of energy. Eventually we will run out of gas and oil. However geothermal energy is virtually limitless. The earth has a molten core of hot magma. The heat generated from this magma rises to the surface in countless locations across the earth. By far the most famous is active volcanoes and hot springs.

If we harnessed Geothermal energy then we wouldn't be taking heat directly out of the earth we would just be utilizing the excess heat that already is coming off of the planet. Though currently around 10,000 megawatts of geothermal energy is used worldwide this is no where near the potential that geothermal energy could be put to use on. Tapping into geothermal energy might release certain gases from within the earth into the atmosphere but this comes no where close to the amount of damage used in fossil fuels.

The main reason why geothermal energy is not being used is because it is area intensive. However recently as our technology is increasing we have found that the areas that geothermal energy is accessible are abundant. Without the drilling deep into the earth which is very expensive (however we are doing that already to get oil).

The entire earth today uses up roughly .5 ZJ's (zeta joules). However if we effectively harnessed every realistically accessible geothermal power source we have found thus far we could generate over four thousand times that. Also it is important to realize that the heat of the earth is constantly renewed this energy is completely limitless. This means that if used you would never have to pay for energy again or if so then at a fraction of what you do now.