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)

> If you can find someone unsophisticated to invest in a fission reactor that takes billions of dollars and 10-15 years to build

Unsophisticated investors like the Chinese government? 'Nearly every Chinese nuclear project that has entered service since 2010 has achieved construction in 7 years or less.'

https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/chinas-impressive-...

They dabble in nuclear, but it is not their focus. China can do what the developed world cannot because they are a command economy with less expensive labor, which will only last for a bit longer due to their structural demographics. Unless the developed world no longer has labor regulations, developed world wages, and capital based allocation systems, my statement stands with regards to investment. If capital and labor does not matter, certainly, anything is possible (Paraoh demanding pyramids, for example).

Your citation comes from an organization with pro nuclear bias.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Institute

Can China Break Nuclear Power’s Cost Curse—and What Can the US Learn? - https://rooseveltinstitute.org/blog/can-china-break-nuclear-... - September 17th, 2025

China built more solar power in the last 8 months than all the nuclear power built in the entire world in the entire history of human civilisation. And even if you adjust for utilisation rate to compare against nuclear utilisation China built more solar power generated per hour than all the nuclear power currently in operation generate in an hour - and did so in 12-18 months - https://bsky.app/profile/climatenews.bsky.social/post/3lggqu... - January 23, 2025

China is installing the wind and solar equivalent of five large nuclear power stations per week - https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-07-16/chinas-renewa... - July 15th, 2024

Nuclear Continues To Lag Far Behind Renewables In China Deployments - https://cleantechnica.com/2024/01/12/nuclear-continues-to-la... - January 12th, 2024

Nuclear Energy & Free Market Capitalism Aren’t Compatible - https://cleantechnica.com/2023/11/06/nuclear-energy-free-mar... - November 6th, 2023

https://x.com/MoreBirths/status/1910780131318374524 | https://archive.today/iu9jx (China demographics citation)

If France–a country known for its strong labour laws and unions–could transition to nuclear in the '70s, any Western country can do it.

Even if the Western world lags behind due to labour regulations, the cost still pays off in the long run due to overall less complex infrastructure and stable, AC baseload power. You are thinking only about the cost of building. What about the cost of maintaining all that infrastructure? Huge solar and wind farms spread out over vast areas, essentially destroying the local ecology? NPPs have a relatively tiny footprint.

Every cited source has a bias. You think 'Clean Technica' is unbiased? Come on.

The options in the '70s were much different from those of today. And for France specifically what they have underground (lots of uranium, no oil, no gas & no coal) strongly suggested exactly one way forward.

Wind and solar existed in the 70s as well.

Plus, Germany invested 500 billion Euros in its energy transition and is STILL heavily dependent on coal.