POWER FROM THE CORE OF THE EARTH
There are regions where the ground is red-hot at a depth of a hundred feet. While there is no water present to furnish steam, it is a simple matter to sink a water pipe down to the heated earth and then, around this pipe, to drive a ring of smaller pipes through which steam may find its way up to the top and be fed either into water heaters or directly into steam engines. In fact it has been suggested that such a scheme might be used almost anywhere. If we bore into the earth, we find that the temperature grows higher the deeper we go. The rate of increase of temperature varies with different localities, but it is very evident that anywhere on earth temperatures that will give a steam pressure of ten or more pounds per square inch can be obtained if we dig down far enough, and when we find it worth while to do so we shall probably riddle the earth’s crust with perforations through which water will be sent down to the subterranean furnaces and it will return to us laden with heat energy.
After all, we shall not be plunged into dire want when our stores of coal are exhausted. There will be other sources of power to draw upon, most of which will be inexhaustible. Furthermore, we have recently discovered in atoms of matter stores of energy incomparably greater than any that have heretofore been used to work the will of man. How to utilize this energy we have not yet learned, but the energy is there, and no doubt, some day, probably long before coal takes its place in museum collections, we shall be possessed of a new slave, far more powerful than that which has served us so far.