Geothermal Could Be the Big Winner of This Election Cycle

As the 118th Congress prepares to clear the way for a new set of legislators who will be responsible for confirming cabinet picks, passing tax legislation, and whatever else the President-reelect throws at them, it is also quietly working on bills to ease the development path for the one form of clean, firm power that Republicans and Democrats can peaceably unite around: geothermal.

Geothermal has something to offer for everyone in Washington. “It’s a source of clean energy, which makes it appealing to Democrats,” Aidan Mackenzie, a fellow at the science and technology policy group the Institute for Progress, told me. It can also generate electricity 24 hours a day with no greenhouse gas emissions, thus potentially making it a key part of the decarbonized grid of the future.

For Republicans, it does all this while also employing the people, skills, and sometimes the actual gear of the oil and gas industry to drill deep into pockets of trapped heat, which are often in states Republicans control. For this reason, it “fits very well with ‘drill baby drill’ Republican ethos,” Mackenzie added.

This overlap has opened up space for bipartisan cooperation, especially on tailoring and rewriting permitting rules for the industry. This week, the House passed two bills with essentially unanimous Republican and some Democratic support: the HEATS Act, which exempts some geothermal exploration activity from permitting requirements, and the CLEAN Act, which mandates more geothermal lease sales by the Department of the Interior.

At the same time, a group of moderate Democrats have pressed House and Senate leadership to pass the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024, proposed by Senators Joe Manchin and John Barrasso. That bill includes several policies either borrowed from the Senate’s bipartisan GEO Act or mirroring the new House bills, including measures to exempt some geothermal development from environmental reviews and establish an ombudsman to coordinate permitting. The bill has already passed the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, of which Manchin and Barrasso are the co-chairs, and negotiations to get a bill that could pass the House and a full Senate vote are ongoing.

Traditionally, geothermal has been limited by the availability of the resource, namely extremely hot water or steam trapped in the Earth’s surface, which is then tapped through drilling. Next generation technologies bring fluid to hot rocks underground, vastly expanding the potential of the technology.

“The U.S. electricity market is desperate for 24/7 new power,” Jeremy Harrell, chief executive officer of the conservative environmental group ClearPath, told me. The Department of Energy has estimated that so-called next generation geothermal could provide some 90 gigawatts of continuous clean energy generating capacity by 2050, which could help unlock truly decarbonized grids.

All of this makes the case for bipartisanship pretty clear. The HEATS and CLEAN Act were sponsored by Republicans Young Kim of California and Russ Fulcher of Idaho, while the GEO Act was sponsored by two Republicans, James Risch of Idaho and Mike Lee of Utah, alongside two Democrats, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. Two of those sponsors, Lee and Heinrich, will be the chair and ranking members of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, respectively, in the upcoming Congress.

“Scaling our investments in research, development, and demonstration, and reforming the way we permit geothermal projects on our public lands are bipartisan priorities,” Heinrich told me in an emailed statement. “As we approach the next Congress, I remain committed to putting geothermal projects on an equal footing with oil and gas projects on public lands and accelerating the deployment of advanced geothermal energy systems nationwide.”

Those oil and gas companies are also sometimes investors in geothermal projects, and in the case of enhanced geothermal technology, share workers, drilling techniques, and equipment. Enhanced geothermal startup Fervo, for instance, counts the fracking company Liberty Energy among its investors. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, is Liberty’s CEO.

Something else that may benefit geothermal in the years to come: It received relatively few benefits from the Inflation Reduction Act compared to other clean energy sectors, and therefore isn’t closely associated with a law passed on a partisan basis. “We notoriously got left out of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the IRA. That’s well documented,” Jeanine Vany, the co-founder of the closed-loop advanced geothermal company Eavor, told me.

Geothermal did get some money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, including $84 million for pilot demonstration projects, Harrell pointed out. But that “wasn’t a ton,” he said, and there’s still a “a need for reasonable but targeted investments.” And while Republicans and Democrats may be able to play nice on reforming regulatory requirements for geothermal, agreeing to spend more money may be more difficult.

“The question is, are the two parties willing to strike a deal?” Mackenzie said. “For Democrats, it’s accepting permitting changes. For Republicans, it’s a question of whether they are willing to spend any money on this.”

Senator Heinrich has called on Senate appropriators to include $100 million for next-generation geothermal demonstration projects, an effort that was notably joined only by his fellow Democrats.

The Institute for Progress and Employ America, an economic policy group, have proposed funding the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, to help advance geothermal. The Office has already shelled out billions for advanced nuclear and carbon capture programs.

“It’s a question in an era where there’s a big focus of cutting back and not expanding,” Mackenzie told me. “Is there any actual room to get money out there?”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that Employ America is a partner on the proposal for the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations.