The Scottish Government’s recently published 2020 Routemap for Renewable Energy in Scotland, part of Scotland’s Renewables Action Plan, identifies geothermal energy as an emerging technology for heating and potentially for power generation. This has highlighted the on-going research of Dr Ed Stephens of the Department of Earth Sciences into geothermal energy sources, notably within granite bodies in the Eastern Grampian Highlands. The elevated heat flow levels in these ‘hot rocks’ are the consequence of radioactive decay of uranium, thorium and potassium.
