Geothermal Energy Is Having Its Moment — But at What Cost? | Taha Abbasi

Geothermal energy is having a moment — and US Energy Secretary Chris Wright is one of its biggest champions. But a closer look at how the administration is funding geothermal reveals a troubling pattern: robbing other clean energy programs to pay for geothermal’s expansion. Taha Abbasi examines why geothermal energy’s potential is real but the political games around its funding undermine the broader energy transition.

Geothermal energy — heat extracted from the Earth’s interior to generate electricity and provide direct heating — has long been considered the forgotten renewable. While solar and wind have dominated clean energy headlines and investment, geothermal has quietly provided reliable baseload power in places like Iceland, New Zealand, and parts of the western United States. Now, breakthrough drilling technology from companies like Fervo Energy and Quaise Energy is making geothermal viable in regions previously thought unsuitable, and policy attention is finally catching up.

Why Geothermal Matters Now

The fundamental advantage of geothermal is availability. Unlike solar and wind, geothermal doesn’t depend on weather conditions. A geothermal plant produces power 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with capacity factors exceeding 90% — compared to approximately 25% for solar and 35% for wind. This makes geothermal a natural complement to intermittent renewables, providing the baseload stability that grids need to operate reliably.

The historical limitation has been geography. Traditional geothermal requires naturally occurring hydrothermal resources — underground reservoirs of hot water near the surface. These resources are concentrated in volcanically active regions, primarily the western US, Iceland, Indonesia, the Philippines, and East Africa. This geographic constraint limited geothermal to approximately 3.8 GW of installed capacity in the US — a tiny fraction of total generation.

Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) change the equation entirely. EGS involves drilling deep wells into hot rock, fracturing the rock to create permeability, and circulating water through the fractures to extract heat. This technique makes geothermal viable anywhere that the Earth’s subsurface temperature is high enough — which is essentially everywhere if you drill deep enough.

As Taha Abbasi notes, the parallels between EGS drilling technology and the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) revolution are striking. The same drilling innovations that unlocked vast natural gas reserves are now being applied to extract clean, renewable heat from the Earth. It’s a poetic technological transfer: the tools that enabled the fossil fuel boom may now accelerate its replacement.

The Funding Controversy

Energy Secretary Chris Wright has been vocal about geothermal’s potential, calling it “the most underappreciated energy resource.” His enthusiasm is well-placed — the technology’s potential is genuinely enormous. The US Department of Energy estimates that the country’s geothermal resources could provide over 60 GW of baseload power, roughly equivalent to the output of 60 nuclear plants.

However, the administration’s approach to funding geothermal has drawn criticism. Rather than securing new appropriations for geothermal research and deployment, the DOE has redirected funds from existing clean energy programs — solar, wind, and energy efficiency initiatives — to boost geothermal spending. Critics argue this is a zero-sum approach that undermines proven clean energy technologies to fund a still-emerging one.

The pattern is consistent with the administration’s broader energy policy, which has favored technologies aligned with the fossil fuel industry’s existing expertise (drilling, subsurface engineering) while cutting support for technologies perceived as ideologically progressive (solar, wind, EVs). Whether intentional or not, the effect is to slow the deployment of technologies that are already cost-competitive while accelerating one that remains largely pre-commercial.

Taha Abbasi argues that this is a false choice. The energy transition requires all available tools — solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear, battery storage, and technologies not yet invented. Funding geothermal at the expense of solar and wind is like building one lane of a highway while tearing up another. The destination is the same; the journey just takes longer.

The Technology Breakthroughs

Despite the funding controversy, the technical progress in geothermal is genuinely exciting. Fervo Energy, a startup backed by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, has successfully demonstrated commercial-scale EGS in Nevada. The company’s Project Cape operation proved that enhanced geothermal can deliver electricity at costs competitive with natural gas — a milestone that many geothermal skeptics said was years away.

Quaise Energy is pursuing an even more ambitious approach: using millimeter-wave drilling to penetrate to depths of 12+ miles, accessing temperatures exceeding 500°C. At these temperatures, water becomes supercritical — a state between liquid and gas that carries enormous thermal energy. A single supercritical geothermal well could produce 5-10 times more power than a conventional well, potentially making geothermal the cheapest energy source available.

Google has also entered the geothermal space, partnering with Fervo to power its data centers with geothermal electricity. The tech giant’s involvement brings both capital and credibility, signaling to the investment community that geothermal is ready for serious commercial deployment.

How Geothermal Complements the EV Revolution

For the EV market specifically, geothermal’s baseload characteristics are particularly valuable. As electric vehicle adoption grows, electricity demand will increase significantly — the DOE estimates that full US vehicle electrification would increase electricity consumption by approximately 25%. This additional demand must be met by clean generation to preserve the environmental benefit of EVs.

Solar and wind can provide much of this additional generation, but their intermittency creates challenges for overnight EV charging (when solar is unavailable) and winter charging (when both solar and wind production often decline). Geothermal’s 24/7 availability makes it an ideal complement, providing the steady baseload that ensures clean electricity is available whenever EV owners plug in.

As Taha Abbasi sees it, geothermal’s potential is undeniable — it could be the backbone of a truly clean, reliable, 24/7 electricity grid. But achieving that potential requires additional investment, not redirected investment. The energy transition is big enough for geothermal, solar, wind, nuclear, and storage to all play major roles. The winning strategy is to accelerate everything, not pick favorites.

The Road Ahead

Geothermal energy is at an inflection point. The technology is proven, the economics are approaching competitiveness, and policy attention is finally arriving. The next five years will determine whether geothermal becomes a major contributor to the clean energy grid or remains a promising but marginal technology.

For Taha Abbasi, who follows energy technology as closely as autonomous driving and robotics, geothermal represents one of the most exciting and underreported stories in the clean energy transition. If the drilling breakthroughs continue and deployment scales as projected, geothermal could ultimately provide more clean electricity than solar and wind combined — not because solar and wind are inadequate, but because geothermal’s reliability and density make it uniquely valuable for the baseload generation that grids desperately need.

Source: CleanTechnica

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About the Author: Taha Abbasi is a technology executive, CTO, and applied frontier tech builder. Read more on Grokpedia | YouTube: The Brown Cowboy | tahaabbasi.com