The “inventories” of the world’s resources have mainly been carried out in the United States and Europe. However, these inventories often depend on the only known subsoil temperature data from mining, oil and geothermal drilling, or on surface manifestations such as volcanism and thermal resurgence.
Thus, these inventories show potential resources whose strategic stakes are very high: 356 GWe for the United States (USGS 2008, electrical potential of hydrothermal resources and EGS), 100 GWe for Europe (The European HDR project at Soultz presentation, 2004).
In Europe, the main exploited or potential deep geothermal resources are located in Turkey, Central Europe, France, and Italy (Larderello). On the map, these are the red, pink and brown areas.
Map of Europe and France of temperatures at 5 km depth: