Why Does Geothermal’s Messaging Sound Like Fossil Fuel & Nuclear’s?

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One of the things I’ve found amusing while researching this series on geothermal is how much the sector’s rhetoric mirrors the natural gas and nuclear industry’s. It’s not the flex they think it is, highlighting clearly that they are the poor cousins trying to compare favorably to the affluent and dominant side of the family.

As a note, this is one in a series of articles on geothermal. The scope of the series is outlined in the introductory piece. If your interest area or concern isn’t reflected in the introductory piece, please leave a comment.

One of the most common themes in geothermal marketing and policy discussions is the supposed unreliability of wind and solar. The industry loves to call these sources “intermittent,” a term that appears with remarkable frequency in white papers, reports, and company blogs. Schlumberger New Energy, a major geothermal player, framed it like this: “While solar and wind have reshaped the energy landscape, these sources are beginning to show their limits.” That statement alone tells you everything about the geothermal industry’s approach—acknowledge renewables’ success, but immediately pivot to their inadequacies. Eavor Technologies, another geothermal firm, went even further: “Wind and solar cannot provide baseload energy, and geothermal can.” This is a message repeated in countless variations across the sector, reinforcing the idea that wind and solar, while nice, are just not enough.

The phrasing is careful. Instead of outright dismissing wind and solar, geothermal communications lean into the idea that they are incomplete without a firm, stable counterpart. Geothermal, naturally, is presented as the answer. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Geothermal FAQ states, “Geothermal’s 90%+ capacity factor lets it balance intermittent sources of energy like wind and solar.” Third Way’s 2024 geothermal status report calls geothermal a “reliable, baseload” energy source that supports “intermittent sources like wind and solar.” The message is relentless: wind and solar are inherently unreliable, and without a steadying force, they will fail to provide true energy security.

The geothermal sector also enjoys highlighting the supposed gaps and limits of wind, solar, and storage. The line “the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow” has become a staple, appearing across company websites and industry presentations. Schlumberger’s 2023 briefing went a step further, warning that as wind and solar penetration increases, the grid faces growing reliability challenges. While some would argue that expanded storage and transmission are addressing these concerns, geothermal firms are quick to suggest that batteries remain too expensive and transmission too complicated. A common refrain is that utilities that “buy too much wind and solar start to need something firm, or a baseload to support it.”

That word—baseload—is the geothermal industry’s linguistic ace in the hole. It appears everywhere, a convenient shorthand for the idea that a grid needs something constant and unshakable. Baseload Capital, a geothermal investment firm, wears the term as a badge of honor. The U.S. DOE’s 2019 GeoVision report explicitly calls geothermal a “baseload renewable power” needed for grid stability. The implication is clear: geothermal is not just another clean energy source—it is the foundation on which a reliable grid is built. This emphasis on baseload is strategic, playing directly into the anxieties of policymakers and utilities that worry about too much reliance on wind and solar.

The electricity industry is undergoing a fundamental shift, and the term baseload is being dragged, kicking and screaming, into obsolescence. For decades, the grid was built around the idea that massive coal and nuclear plants would run 24/7, providing a constant, inflexible supply of electricity. That paradigm worked in a world where electricity demand was predictable and fossil fuels were the unquestioned backbone of energy systems. But today’s grid isn’t that grid. Wind and solar now dominate new generation capacity, and modern electricity markets prioritize firmed and flexible power—resources that can ramp up and down as needed rather than sitting there stubbornly running at full tilt. In a system where supply varies with weather and demand surges unpredictably, baseload isn’t just irrelevant, it’s a liability.

The problem is that regulatory frameworks are often stuck in the past, still treating baseload as a sacred cow because it was baked into the assumptions of legacy generation. Electricity rules written in the era of centralized thermal plants enshrined baseload as a necessity, not because it was inherently better, but because that’s all the industry had. Now, as grids integrate massive amounts of wind, solar, and storage, what actually matters is capacity that can be dispatched when needed—not whether a plant hums along at a constant rate regardless of demand. The future isn’t about keeping outdated baseload plants online; it’s about matching supply to demand dynamically with a mix of renewables, storage, responsive loads, and fast-ramping generation. Clinging to baseload as a defining characteristic of reliability is like demanding that Netflix schedule its content releases around broadcast TV slots—it’s an outdated framework that no longer makes sense in the world we live in.

What wind and solar need isn’t 90% capacity factors, it’s 40% capacity factors and falling to support the increasingly brief periods when cheap wind, solar, storage and transmission still fall short. That’s what natural gas in the USA is seeing and that’s what coal in China is seeing. That makes geothermal’s capital costs and black swan risks a hard sell to modern utilities, and it will just turn into a harder and harder sell as there are more and more wind and solar on the gird with batteries providing firming.

Despite the claims that renewables compromise reliability, the data shows exactly the opposite. Countries like Germany and Denmark, with exceptionally high penetrations of wind and solar, consistently achieve world-class grid reliability, as evidenced by superior SAIFI (System Average Interruption Frequency Index) and SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index) metrics. Germany, for instance, maintains an impressively low SAIDI, averaging less than 15 minutes of downtime annually, while Denmark’s performance hovers near similar levels—far outperforming supposedly stable coal- and nuclear-heavy grids like France, Poland, and Texas. France, notably reliant on nuclear power, regularly struggles with prolonged outages, reflected in SAIDI values typically several times higher. Poland and Texas, both heavily dependent on coal and natural gas, consistently underperform, experiencing more frequent and lengthier interruptions. The stark reality remains: renewable-heavy grids aren’t just greener—they’re demonstrably more reliable.

The problem with geothermal’s messaging is not just that it undermines the workhorses of wind and solar—it’s that it borrows heavily from fossil fuel industry rhetoric. The similarities between geothermal’s arguments and those of the natural gas lobby are striking. Both emphasize that as wind and solar grow, reliability becomes a concern. Both claim that storage is not yet sufficient to replace firm power. Both point out that “the sun goes down at night.” A 2024 think tank report on natural gas framed it bluntly: “As the grid becomes more dependent on wind and solar, it will become potentially less reliable… Only natural gas can guarantee reliability during the green transition.” That sounds eerily similar to the geothermal industry’s favorite pitch: “With increasing penetration of solar and wind … we have to ask: Is the renewable puzzle missing a piece?” The only difference is that geothermal presents itself as the missing piece, rather than gas.

The overlap extends beyond language. The geothermal sector’s skepticism toward large-scale transmission projects and grid-scale storage mirrors the talking points of fossil fuel interests that oppose renewable expansion. A Geothermal Rising blog on renewable pros and cons pointed out that wind farms are “limited to locations where wind [is strong]” and that “transporting wind energy requires costly and disruptive transmission lines.” Fossil fuel groups have been making the same arguments for years, usually to justify continued investment in gas infrastructure.

It’s no coincidence that so many geothermal startups are founded and staffed by former fossil fuel professionals. At Fervo Energy, one of the most well-funded geothermal startups, roughly 60% of the staff came from oil and gas. Quaise Energy, Sage Geosystems, and others are similarly led by ex-fossil executives. This isn’t an accident—it’s a deliberate—and to be clear appropriate if unconventional geothermal actually has a future—strategy to transfer drilling expertise into geothermal. But it also means that the industry has adopted a mindset shaped by decades of oil and gas thinking, leading to an unhealthy and unproductive skepticism toward wind and solar.

The result is a geothermal sector that, while technically a renewable industry, often speaks in ways that align more closely with fossil fuel interests than with the broader clean energy movement. This is especially evident in its messaging around reliability and baseload. The geothermal sector’s relationship with wind and solar is a complicated dance—publicly supportive, yet constantly positioning itself as the necessary complement to their supposed shortcomings.

This narrative is not unique to geothermal. The nuclear industry has been playing the same game for years. Nuclear energy advocates love to point out that nuclear plants operate 24/7 at high capacity, while wind and solar are variable. The Office of Nuclear Energy claims that nuclear is “almost 3 times … more reliable than wind and solar plants.” That line could have just as easily come from a geothermal PR team.

Geothermal and nuclear both emphasize that they are the backbone of the grid, the solution to renewables’ weaknesses. Both stress land use efficiency, pointing out that a nuclear or geothermal plant requires far less space than sprawling wind or solar farms. (Of course, this misses the glaringly obvious point that land footprint is already baked into project economics.) Both warn that without firm power, a grid reliant on wind and solar will struggle. And both are careful to frame themselves as clean alternatives to fossil fuels, even as they borrow the gas industry’s arguments about reliability.

If geothermal in all of its various guises had a competitive role in low-carbon generation, it wouldn’t have to disparage wind and solar, using rhetoric from the fossil fuel and nuclear industries. It would simply compete and win for power delivery. Instead, conventional geothermal electrical generation is restricted to places like Kenya’s Rift Valley and the island collections of temporarily quiescent volcanos we currently call Iceland and New Zealand. Closed loop geothermal is restricted to test sites, and its real value proposition is already fulfilled by ground source geothermal heating with heat pumps. Deep and enhanced geothermal are stuck in the lab.

No wonder they constantly throw shade at wind and solar. The envy and aggravation must run deep.

It’s unclear what geothermal’s path forward is outside of conventional geothermal where it’s viable and heating and cooling provision with heat pumps. The capital costs of the unconventional forms mean they have to run at 90% capacity factors. While they might technically be able to be load following in the future, that’s not something that they will be able afford to do. They have to compete with much cheaper batteries for grid firming in any event, and natural gas peakers can’t do that any more, as California along with a lot of other jurisdictions are demonstrating. They can’t be built on the same footprints as coal plants and get anywhere near the GW scale capacity, so can’t claim effective reuse of boilers, turbines and transmission assets that are left behind.

They are really competing at similar cost points, black swan risks and construction durations with nuclear energy, a form of generation that remains uncompetitive in the west. While a decade or 15 years ago the assumption was that the last 20% of decarbonization would be too expensive without nuclear, that shaded down to the last 10% a few years ago. Now nuclear advocates are openly talking about being required for the last 5%, usually with worried tones in their voices as batteries, solar panels and wind turbines continue to plumb new depths of costs. Competing to not be the least competitive form of electrical generation in a shrinking fragment of generation doesn’t lead to unconventional geothermal being a winner.

This isn’t the last article in the geothermal series, but it does rather tie a bow on unconventional geothermal. I’ve already covered conventional geothermal, which is great where the conditions are right—note the reality of geothermal as opposed to the shade they throw on wind and solar—but there’s still the big aspect of heating and cooling, where risks and capital costs are much lower and value is much higher.