BBC: "The abundant but expensive energy source that's under your feet"
by Christine Ro
"It's the same techniques and up to a point it's the same industry as well," sums up Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School in New York. But "from a climate perspective, there's a huge difference," he adds.
For him, the risk of seismic activity, by creating cracks underground, is outweighed by the benefits of an energy source that is renewable, always-on and large-capacity.
"Based on where we are, moving much faster, much bigger in the direction of using much more geothermal, frankly, is all good news," Wagner says.
Nevertheless Columbia researcher Wagner believes geothermal has tremendous potential and is not just hype.
He emphasises that commodities like oil, gas and coal are vulnerable to political disruption, but "geothermal is a technology" and more secure.
Wagner is confident that geothermal energy has now achieved liftoff, and will only get better and cheaper over time.
