Eden Project: Drilling For Heat

Screenhouse seems to have an attraction to very deep holes. We filmed what was then Europe’s deepest mine, 1km deep, in North Yorkshire. Then a new mine a few miles away that will be even deeper at 1.5km.

This time reporter Lucy Siegle visited The Eden Project in Cornwall, where we filmed with Eden Geothermal,  a huge project drilling into the rocks beneath Cornwall in search of intense heat. They expect to find it 4.5km below the surface. Then they’ll pump cold water down the hole, hot water will come up, and they’ll use it to heat not only the Eden biomes and greenhouses but up to 17,000 local homes.

The rig they use to dig the hole looks just like an oil rig – because it is. Many of the team running it are ex oil people: they’ve come to Cornwall in search of hot water!