Hope springs eternal when it comes to new energy sources. David Gelles of the New York Times “Climate Forward” claims there’s gold in them thar hills in the form of geothermal power which is poised to take off, save the US from the AI power crunch, save the world from the dreaded carbon and make us all rich. Or not, since “A new wave of start-ups are trying to harvest emissions-free energy from inside the Earth, but the industry still faces significant challenges.” Like the part about not really working except in climate-zealots’ imaginations and columns.

For starters, of course, you should always be suspicious of “emissions-free” anything. Does the cement needed for the installations not give off CO2? It’s not the big problem, but it’s revealing of a mindset that has long since ceased to exercise responsible caution in the face of reckless enthusiasm.

Here, as with our item last week on heat pumps, we are prepared to exercise responsible caution in the face of dour skepticism. If this stuff works, it would be great. Probably not as the main energy source for an industrial economy but as one more option, and at least potentially in some places a decentralized option. But again there’s that “if”.

Which is why it’s a far bigger problem that Gelles gushes that “The International Energy Agency now estimates that geothermal could provide 15 percent of the world’s energy needs by 2050 with sufficient investment. Wood Mackenzie, an energy research firm, asked whether the industry could be ‘the next North American gold rush.’” As if those normally ended well for most participants. And “with sufficient investment” is a somewhat open-ended term.

Especially as even the IEA, while itself gushing “Advances in technology are opening new horizons for geothermal” including the dreaded “horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing honed through oil and gas developments in North America”, admits that:

“For the moment, geothermal meets less than 1% of global energy demand and its use is concentrated in a few countries with easily accessible and high-quality resources, including the United States, Iceland, Indonesia, Türkiye, Kenya and Italy.”

Oh, so it’s already doing well in the US? Uh, that’d be not. In fact geothermal there, despite its “high-quality resources” of lava or whatever is involved, including natural hot water, constitutes a glorious 0.4% of “utility-scale electricity generation”.

Sadly, carbonphobes have a track record of falling in love with some unsuitable technology, insisting that it’s a dreamboat, and then abruptly ditching it for something no more plausible. With wind and solar disappointing, and green hydrogen a non-starter, suddenly it’s geothermal. Hence Heatmap’s herd-of-independent-minds:

“Exclusive: Western States Form New Bipartisan Geothermal Consortium/ The effort brings together leaders of four Mountain West states with nonprofit policy expertise to help speed financing and permitting for development.”

Hmmm: nonprofit policy expertise among politicians. Is there any other kind? But see the rush is on:

“Geothermal is so hot right now. And bipartisan. Long regarded as the one form of electricity generation everyone in Washington can agree on (it’s both carbon-free and borrows techniques, equipment, and personnel from the oil and gas industry), the technology got yet another shot in the arm last week when leading next-generation geothermal company Fervo raised almost $2 billion by selling shares in an initial public offering. Now, a coalition of western states and nonprofits is coming together to work on the policy and economics of fostering more successful geothermal projects.”

Which some might prefer to do before throwing in big sums. But not when the rhetoric is flowing like champagne… or snake oil:

“We think that the public sector should be a part of the capital stack, and so what we’re trying to do is build investment programs that leverage the state’s ability to provide the early concessionary capital and match that with private sector capital. The consortium has done a whole bunch of financial modeling around this, and we’re now working with energy offices to build that into actual programs where they can start funding.”

Oh. Actual programs. Yeah. Might be nice. Even in the midst of a capital stack leveraging the concessionary capital in a model.

So dream on. But maybe invest the pension somewhere else. Somewhere less starry-eyed and speculative.