An energy revolution is currently underway in the United States. During the Biden administration, the nation produced and exported record amounts of gas and oil while simultaneously investing previously unheard-of amounts of federal funds in clean energy projects, such as nuclear power plants, solar farms, and battery factories. Although he is skeptical of solar and wind power, President Donald Trump has pledged to increase energy production even more. However, Trump’s motto goes beyond fossil fuels. Geothermal energy, which is poised for a very American boom, is being embraced by his administration.
Less than 0.5 percent of the electricity produced in the US comes from geothermal energy, which harnesses the heat of the Earth to generate electricity. However, there are currently few other clean energy sources that show as much promise. As a renewable energy source that produces electricity with no carbon emissions, geothermal energy is favored by many climate activists. Geothermal could supply up to 64 percent of the new electricity demand from data centers by the early 2030s, according to a recent report from the energy research firm Rhodium Group. When it comes to building nuclear power plants or producing solar panels, the United States lags far behind competitors like China and Russia. However, geothermal utilizes an area of the U.S. industrial base that has expanded recently: the production of gas and oil.
Cindy Taff, whose business, Sage Geosystems, is looking ahead to the possible expansion of geothermal energy, told me about a recent trip she took through southern Texas that demonstrated that overlap. She laughed and remarked, “The same drilling rig that drilled our well in September was on a lease right off the highway drilling an oil-and-gas well.” “It is simply the same.”
Taff was formerly a vice president at Royal Dutch Shell, where she oversaw a staff of 350 workers who drilled through the bedrock of five different countries using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Beginning in the mid-2000s, fracking had fueled an oil and gas boom, and her team had considered applying the same method to harness the heat beneath the surface of the Earth. She informed me that at Shell, “we never actually drilled wells” to test geothermal energy. “It was annoying.” She started Sage because she thought the opportunity was significant enough.
Similar to oil and gas, geothermal energy, which uses the planet’s molten core to create steam, has historically only been found in areas with easy access, such as Iceland’s volcanic landscape or the American West, where Yellowstone’s well-known geysers give away the heat beneath. Geothermal energy can be a significant source of power in those locations, which are typically volcanic hot spots with shallow magma flows in the Earth’s crust and subterranean water reservoirs. It currently supplies about 10% of Nevada’s electricity generation and up to 5% of California’s power; geothermal energy accounts for 30% of Iceland’s electricity generation and nearly half of Kenya’s. Conventional coal or nuclear power plants use heat to convert water into steam, which drives turbines to produce electricity. The same is true for geothermal power plants, which use hot water from subterranean reservoirs.
In order to provide access to heat in more places, Sage uses fracking technology to split open hot rocks even further below the surface. After injecting water into the well, the company’s drillers pry open the stone fissures, forming an artificial reservoir. When Sage lets go of that water, the subterranean pressure propels it upward, and the heat produces vapors that turn turbines and generate electricity. Weather-dependent wind and solar energy can also be stored by this system: excess electricity from solar panels and turbines can be used to pump water into Sage’s wells, which can then be released to generate electricity.
Although Sage already has an agreement to sell power to Meta’s data centers, it anticipates opening its first energy storage facility in Texas in the upcoming weeks. And back in 2023, at a pilot project in Nevada, a similar start-up, Fervo Energy, proved that it could successfully use fracking technology to produce carbon-free energy around-the-clock.
When compared to other renewable energy sources, geothermal energy does have some advantages. Large tracts of land, enormous amounts of minerals, and a vast new transmission line network are required for solar and wind power. (In addition, the supply chains for those industries are dominated by China.) In a world where water is becoming more scarce and precipitation is more unpredictable, hydroelectric dams are less reliable. The construction of nuclear reactors is expensive and takes years; the United States has not yet developed the infrastructure necessary to permanently store or recycle nuclear waste, and it is largely dependent on nations like Canada, Kazakhstan, and Russia for uranium fuel.
Since the rocks being targeted are closer to the surface, drilling is easier and less expensive in the American West, where the majority of efforts to introduce next-generation geothermal technology are still ongoing. But like oil-and-gas fracking, geothermal could grow rapidly if the industry can convince investors that its power plants operate as promised, which experts predict will happen by the end of the decade.
The “enhanced” geothermal industry is also well-positioned to expand because it leverages technology from the fossil fuel sector. “Our manufacturing base in the United States is collapsing. Charles Gertler, who until recently worked at the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office and co-authored a report outlining a pathway for the industry’s growth, told me, ‘But we have a ridiculously good industrial base in oil and gas.’ The reason many people are so excited is that you can just rely on many of the same tools, people, technologies, and supply chains.” Since a few traditional geothermal projects failed twenty years ago, investors have been wary of the sector. However, Gertler predicted that banks would reopen their wallets if five to ten new geothermal projects were successful.
The federal government hasn’t done much to directly support the growing geothermal industry, in contrast to other renewable energy sources. The Biden administration had already passed two landmark climate-spending laws by the time Fervo proved it could frack for geothermal energy. These laws allocated billions of dollars to nuclear, wind, and solar technologies, but only $84 million to early-stage geothermal. However, if Republicans in Congress do not repeal important provisions of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, companies like Fervo and Sage may still be eligible for tax credits for generating zero-carbon electricity.
Representative Celeste Maloy, a Republican from Utah whose district Fervo is constructing its first large-scale plant in, told me, “I don’t know where that’s going.” However, she stated that lowering the requirements for obtaining federal permits, something her party is keen to do, might boost the industry to the point where “it almost doesn’t matter what happens to the IRA incentives.” (She consented that no company had presented that argument to her.)
Geothermal has external costs that could become more significant as the industry expands, just like any other energy sector. A significant earthquake was caused by an early enhanced geothermal energy experiment in South Korea in 2017. (In 2021, oil and gas companies injected sludgy wastewater into underground wells, causing earthquakes in Texas to double.) Just as one of the largest lithium projects in the country collided with an endangered wildflower or one of California’s largest solar farms endangered tortoises, areas with exceptionally good hot-rock resources may wind up overlapping with endangered species. Numerous links between this industry and fossil fuel companies will be discovered by environmentalists who are ready to view anything bearing Big Oil’s fingerprints as suspicious. Additionally, the industry will use more water as it grows.
For example, Fervo has been advocating for the use of too brackish water for municipal or agricultural uses. Fervo CEO Tim Latimer told me, “So even though we’re in the western desert, we’re not really fighting with people over water.” Other businesses, like XGS Energy, are drilling more traditional wells and containing the water in closed-loop pipes to reduce the possibility of any water loss.
However, electricity must come from somewhere, and as demand rises, the Trump administration is gaining support—even among some Democrats—to extend the life of coal plants. Gas power plants are growing in the meantime. The nation will need to use all of the clean energy resources available, perhaps especially those that the current administration is willing to support, in order to keep the lights on while minimizing utility costs and global temperatures.
