
The project has secured the £16.8m (€19.4m) funding needed to begin drilling the first well for the clean energy project next summer, a plan that will eventually see it heating neighbouring communities. The gigantic hemispherical greenhouses of the Eden Project were dreamt up by ex-record producer, Tim Smit, and the glass-domed ‘biomes’ recreate major world climate systems in microcosm. These range from the lush jungles of the Amazon rainforest, complete with a treetop walkway winding through the canopy, to the olive trees, citrus groves and colourful flowers of the Mediterranean, South Africa and California.

“Since we began, Eden has had a dream that the world should be powered by renewable energy,” he said. “The sun can provide massive solar power and the wind has been harnessed by humankind for thousands of years, but because both are intermittent and battery technology cannot yet store all we need, there is a gap. We believe the answer lies beneath our feet in the heat underground that can be accessed by drilling technology that pumps water towards the centre of the earth and brings it back up superheated to provide us with heat and electricity.”
Source: Lonely Planet