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The has announced plans to generate up to one-tenth of the UK's electricity by harnessing the power of hot granite rocks lying deep in the Earth's surface near St Austell in Cornwall.

It's estimated that the will generate enough cheap, low-carbon and reliable electricity from Cornwall's hot rocks to power 5,000 British homes (that's a whole megawatt more power than a single wind turbine can generate). It could even scale to service up to a tenth of the UK's energy needs, if everything goes according to plan.

Working with EGS Energy, the Eden Project plans to drill down into 'shallow' granite outcrops (they're still 4km deep, mind) and pump water through them until it hots up to 150°C. On its way back to the surface, the steam will rotate a turbine that generates enough electricity to power the Eden Project site entirely renewably.

Think this sounds a touch futuristic? If anything, it's positively primitive. Geothermal fields have powered Iceland for more than 60 years and currently provide a fifth of the country's electricity (, according to the Guardian).

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