The time has finally come for geothermal energy

It's nuclear fission. It's always been nuclear fission (well, at least since the '50s) and it will continue to be until we commercialize fusion reactors. Everything else is nice to have but it's like NIH syndrome.

Geothermal is fission, and wind, solar, and batteries are fusion at a distance. In both cases, the failure scenarios are benign vs traditional fission generation. It's fine to keep striving for fusion humans control, but the problem (global electrification and transition to low carbon generation) is already solved with the tech we have today. It took the world 68 years to achieve the first 1TW of solar PV. The next 1TW took 2 years. Globally, ~760GW of solar PV is deployed per year (as of this comment), and will at some point hit ~1TW/year of deployment between now and 2030.

Geothermal is a great fit for dispatchable power to replace coal and fossil gas today (where able); batteries are almost cheaper than the cost to ship them, but geothermal would also help solve for seasonal deltas in demand vs supply ("diurnal storage").

https://reneweconomy.com.au/it-took-68-years-for-the-world-t...

https://ember-energy.org/data/2030-global-renewable-target-t...

I also love geothermal for district heating in latitudes that call for it; flooded legacy mines appear to be a potential solution for that use case.

Flooded UK coalmines could provide low-carbon cheap heat 'for generations' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45860049 - November 2025

Failure scenario in modern fission reactors is also benign. Reactors are designed to lock down to prevent any leaks.

We deploy solar PV capacity, this doesn't mean we actually get that much power from the deployments. Nuclear fission provides reliable, baseload power, and doesn't require huge battery arrays to compensate for the sun setting or winds calming.

Enough renewables are deployed annually to replace the global nuclear fission fleet, year after year, even when accounting for capacity factor derating (to make a like for like comparison). The race is over, and renewables (with batteries) won. If you can find someone unsophisticated to invest in a fission reactor that takes billions of dollars and 10-15 years to build, more power to you. There will be no need for it by 2035-2040 when it prepares to send its first kwh to the grid.

(and to stay on topic for this thread, geothermal is a component of this when geothermal potential exists, cost is competitive, and dispatachability is a requirement to push out fossil generation in concert with renewables, hydro, legacy nuclear, battery storage discharge, and demand response)

https://www.google.com/search?q=baseload+is+a+myth

https://cleantechnica.com/2025/11/15/coal-killing-sodium-ion...

https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/q3-global-power-rep...

https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-electricity-e...

https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-electricity-e...

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec...

https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-e...

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices

https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline

https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/solar-panel-prices-...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44513185 (lfp battery storage cost citation in 2025)