To many it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that the U.S. usurps the largest percentage of geothermal for energy when looking at the overall world utilization of the resource. Yet where would you expect the other four largest utilizers to be? Well, for overall use it would be: Germany, Spain, China, and then Brazil…Nations that are or were ‘superpowers’ in the world at one time, and the majority being from the Northern Hemisphere. Yet A co-worker here at the state Cooperative Extension office looked the five leading nations in terms of the largest share of their overall domestic energy production coming from geothermal, and surprisingly most came from the Southern hemisphere. Yes, Iceland with its small population and position sitting on a northern volcanic section led the way. But following were those in South or Central America: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Equador, etc.. Its interesting to look at energy resource utilization (NOT necessarily the same as resource presence) from a Human Geography point of view. What hemispheres would you expect to dominate utilization of solar, wind, hydro, etc… from a world composite use or national domestic use point of view? One place to poke around and investigate is the Energy Information Administration though this is a U.S. sponsored site, the front article this morning opens “Russia-China deal will supply Siberian gas…”. The World Bank looks at world figures at and taps into the International Energy Agency data. Check these locations out and grab some impressive stats to impress your friends!