The philanthropic arm of Google, the giant web search company has announced that it will help fund technology for companies to tap into the abundant geothermal energy from the heat that lies just beneath the Earth's surface.

Geothermal is considered to be an natural energy source that has vast potential and to date has had little mainstream investment or exposure. Google's $10 million will be dedicated to the development of Enhanced Geothermal Systems.

The basic idea is to drill deep enough into earth so water can be heated by the magma and returned to the surface with sufficient energy as to drive electricity making turbines.

A recent report out of MIT estimated that by just tapping into 2 percent of the heat between two-seven miles beneath the Earth's crust, in the continental US, could produce 2,500 times the countries entire annual energy.

On Wednesday the Australian government anounced that it was going to invest $12 million into developing ways of turning geothermal energy into electricity. Scientists predict that by just using one percent of the Australia's 'natural' underground central heating system the Aussies could provide enough energy for 26,000 years. Blimey, that's hot!

Google.org's cash will provide funding for three projects in the US. AltaRock Energy of Sausalito, California will get $6.25 million to improve the efficiency of EGS. Potter Drilling of Redwood City, California, will receive $4m to develop ways to make drilling into hard rock less expensive. The rest will go to the Southern Methodist university's geothermal laboratory, based in Dallas, Texas, to produce updated geothermal maps of North America.

It's ironic really when you think about it, that the possible answer to weaning our civilization from the insatibale dependence on fossil fuels, not forgetting the threat to our atmosphere, and the Earth's climate, that the solution to our energy problems could have been under our feet the whole time.