Geothermal Isn't Expensive: The Reservoir Always Has the Final Say Somewhere beneath a volcanic ridge, a drill bit is turning through rock that has not moved in two million years. It costs money every second it turns. And nobody on the surface — not the engineer, not the financier, not the minister who announced the megawatts — knows yet whether that well will produce steam or silence. That single moment explains almost everything people get wrong about geothermal energy. Geothermal is routinely described as expensive, slow, capital-hungry and haunted by drilling risk. Investors are reminded that tens of millions can disappear underground before a single megawatt reaches a grid. All of that is true. But it is not the whole truth. The uncomfortable question the industry keeps avoiding is this: is geothermal expensive, or is the way we develop geothermal making it expensive? Those are two completely different problems. One is geology. The other is us. Why Geothermal Refuses to Be...
The global energy sector is undergoing a radical transformation, with clean, reliable, and sustainable power sources taking center stage. By: Robert Buluma Among these, geothermal energy stands out as an underutilized but highly promising resource that offers baseload power generation with near-zero carbon emissions. The rise of advanced geothermal technologies has attracted significant investments, especially from big tech companies seeking sustainable energy solutions for their energy-intensive AI data centers. One such company making headlines is XGS Energy, a geothermal startup that recently closed a $13 million equity bridge round and is preparing for a $60 million to $100 million growth round. This article explores how XGS Energy and other enhanced geothermal system (EGS) startups are revolutionizing the sector, unlocking geothermal energy potential beyond traditional hotspots, and why investors and technology giants are betting big on this clean energy rev...