By Aasheerwad Dwivedi & Aditya Sinha, Respectively assistant professor, FMS Delhi University & author on macroeconomic & geopolitical issues

India’s first National Policy on Geothermal Energy , released in September, promises to tap the vast stores of heat beneath the earth’s surface to power homes, factories, and farms. It is a bold move. Geothermal is renewable, stable, and free from the intermittency of solar and wind. But a closer look at both the science and the numbers suggests that India’s hopes must be tempered by geological reality and economic risk.

“Geothermal” is not one thing; there are layers to the resource which can be categorised as follows:

Shallow heat (a few metres deep) can be tapped by ground-source heat pumps, which heat buildings in winter and cool them in su

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