Why the U.S. Military Is Betting on Next-Generation Geothermal Technology
2025-05-01T15:24:09Z
The U.S. military is betting on next-generation geothermal technology, even as official policy is to turn away from fighting climate change.
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The U.S. military is betting on next-generation geothermal technology, even as the official policy is to turn away from fighting climate change.
When the U.S. military designs its energy policy, it prioritizes national security. Any effects on greenhouse gas emissions are at best a secondary consideration, especially when the Secretary of Defense is proclaiming that the Department of Defense will no longer “do climate change crap.” That’s why it’s so significant that Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon are continuing to pursue zero-emission, renewable geothermal energy.
Framing the move as support of the president’s “energy dominance” agenda, Dr. Richard Hartman of the U.S. Air Force announced in March that the service had chosen eleven U.S. firms as key providers of geothermal energy for military operations worldwide. This was just the latest step the Pentagon has taken to turn the heat of the Earth’s crust into useful energy. The Army is looking into extracting geothermal energy to power its frigid base in Fort Wainwright, Alaska, and the Navy is exploring the potential of geothermal at its Air Facility in El Centro, California. Meanwhile, the Air Force has asked two firms to build prototype geothermal facilities at bases in Idaho and Texas. All in all, there are seven ongoing projects under the DoD’s “next-generation” geothermal initiative.
A History of American Geothermal Energy: From the Earliest Projects to Commercial Success
The “next-generation” part is key. Americans have been generating electricity from geothermal sources on a commercial scale since PG&E built a power plant on the hot springs of the Geysers, California in 1960—when hot water is close to the surface, it’s easy to tap into in order to allow the steam to be released and then spin a turbine. But, at present, geothermal energy is a niche technology that delivers less than half a percent of U.S. electricity. Only in countries with smaller economies and very favorable subsurface conditions does traditional geothermal (also known as conventional hydrothermal) play a significant role, providing more than forty percent of electricity in Kenya, and thirty percent in Iceland, where it also delivers most of the country’s heat.
Next-generation geothermal energy promises to eventually free the technology of these strict geographic constraints, allowing people to mine heat from almost anywhere. These projects use varied technologies: some are “enhanced geothermal,” which require drillers to inject water into solid rock, fracturing (or fracking) it in the process. Then, they have to collect the heated water at another well to produce energy. This is the technology used at Fervo’s wells in Cape Station, Utah, from which Shell has agreed to purchase power starting in 2026.
Others are “advanced” or “closed-loop” geothermal, which doesn’t require fracking or injecting fluid into the earth; instead, the fluid circulates through underground casings to pick up heat and carry it to the surface. The most ambitious and technically challenging are “super-hot rocks” projects, which aim to go deep enough (less than five kilometers) to reach temperatures of 400 degrees Celsius or higher.
What these approaches have in common is the potential to produce “round-the-clock” energy and eliminate the need for fuel deliveries—a major plus at a time when “threats from wildfires, extreme weather, [and] cybersecurity attacks are increasing,” according to the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit. This added resilience is the same benefit that has driven the military to explore the use of small modular nuclear reactors, but geothermal is further along the road to commercial deployment.
Something for Everyone: The Mass Appeal of Geothermal Energy
Geothermal offers a lot for other U.S. agencies and industries to like, too. Unlike, say, with solar power or batteries, China does not dominate the supply chain. The United States is home to many of the world’s leading oilfield services firms that operate drill rigs—like Baker Hughes, which made the Air Force’s list—and has a large pool of oil and gas workers with transferable skills to fill the 120,000 jobs that could be created if next-generation geothermal reached full scale, according to a 2024 Department of Energy Liftoff report.
The technology could also support the Trump administration’s stated goal of AI dominance by delivering constant power to data centers for tech firms like Meta, an important selling point for Energy Secretary Chris Wright. With drilling costs falling fast, the hope is for today’s handful of pilot and demonstration projects to achieve commercial liftoff in the United States by 2030.
Most importantly, of course, geothermal power plants produce no planet-heating emissions while they are operating. The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is not something many Republicans will talk about in Washington these days. Still, most of the bills on the topic that are working their way through Congress are bipartisan. Examples include the STEAM Act, which aims to facilitate geothermal exploration on public lands, and the GEO Act, which would speed up the federal permitting process for geothermal projects.
As important as permitting is, the industry will also need active government support and financing if it hopes to approach the growth rates enjoyed by those fracking for hydrocarbons. The U.S. government will have to take on some of the risks of drilling for heat—choosing a location with the wrong mix of heat and rock permeability can be expensive enough to sink a project—and strengthen the grid so that firms can deliver their power to consumers and steady profits to investors. Unfortunately, so far, U.S. industrial policy has largely neglected geothermal energy, and the Trump administration is gutting the office at the Department of Energy that would be expected to provide financing to help the industry expand.
Rather than terminating many employees at the Department of Energy’s in-house bank, which would be expected to provide loans for the industry, the Trump administration should be helping U.S. firms get financing to “drill, baby, drill.” It’s partly thanks to the 2014 establishment of a DOE field laboratory in Utah called FORGE that more private investors are able to get behind next-generation geothermal a decade later.
An American Niche: How America Can Be a Leader in Geothermal Energy
It’s important to keep the potential of geothermal in perspective. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that geothermal could meet up to fifteen percent of global electricity demand growth by 2050 if all goes right—which is significant, but this still makes the technology a complement to solar power and the batteries that would be the backbone of a cleaner energy system. U.S.-developed geothermal energy installations could fill an important niche in a diversified global clean energy system, which is an appropriate goal for a fossil fuel superpower that faces challenges in making clean energy products that can compete with its Chinese counterparts.
At a time when clean energy is under assault by the authorities in Washington, DC, geothermal is a rare bright spot —one that lands on Donald Trump’s list of preferred energy technologies, is backed by the Pentagon and has been described by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-14) as a “promising and growing source of renewable energy.” That’s something to build on.
About the Author: Noah J. Gordon
Noah J. Gordon is a fellow in the Sustainability, Climate, and Geopolitics Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. His research focuses on the nexus of climate change and international politics, including the fields of climate geopolitics and security, global clean energy supply chains, and the interplay between climate change and migration. He co-created a Carnegie podcast about animal agriculture and climate change called ‘Barbecue Earth’.
Image: Shutterstock/Morgan J Thomas
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