Paul Younger — a pioneer in UK geothermal energy

Paul Younger was an outstanding geologist born and bred in the northeast of England and although he spent time away, his geological umbilical firmly fixed him in the region encompassing the counties of Northumberland and Durham their cities, towns and pit villages; an area for which the geology underpinned the industrial and social development. The linkage between geology and industry is commonly reflected in the groundwater of area and it was this that first stimulated Paul into research. He became a hydrogeologist. But Paul recognised that there is more to adit water outflow than solutes. The water told another story, one of heat below the surface, copious amounts of it. The warm and tepid waters encountered by Paul in the region set him thinking about geothermal energy. In 2004 he became the first person in 20 years to drill a dedicated geothermal appraisal well in the UK at Eastgate in Weardale. He followed up with a second well in Eastgate in 2010 and a third in central Newcastle in 2011. Paul was passionate about the energy transition and saw geothermal energy as a vast resource, easily won and one which could affect a fundamental change in the way we heat our homes and places of work. Sadly, Paul did not live to see the UK National Geothermal Centre formed in 2024. It is nonetheless a product of his vision.