Former gas terminals could be repurposed as geothermal energy facilities as the world moves away from fossil fuels.

According to Andreas Busch, professor of earth sciences at Heriot-Watt University, the North Sea harbours easily exploitable geothermal energy in the form of heat that could be used to generate zero-carbon electricity.

The North Sea oil basin is currently in decline, and production in 2023 was the lowest since the 1970s. With Britain looking to eliminate its carbon emissions by 2050, hundreds of wells will need to be decommissioned every year as more oil and gas fields shut down.

According to Busch, repurposing the existing infrastructure for geothermal energy offers a “multitude of advantages” – largely because it’s much more cost-effective and has a lower environmental impact than drilling new wells.

After decades of production, the oil sector has collected troves of data on the reservoirs, which reduces the risk of drilling new wells that potentially fail.

“This strategy...