Geothermal: Clean Energy for People Who Like to Drill

Today, most people view artificial intelligence (AI) as a cultural phenomenon—think chatbots, deepfakes, existential essays on consciousness, and fears about AI replacing jobs. Beneath these ideas lies the AI industrial effort—artificial intelligence as physical infrastructure, including transformers, substations, and silicon warehouses that operate nonstop. They are forcing the idea of reliable power, a concept California once outsourced to natural gas. 

In 2024, clean energy accounted for about 60 percent of California’s power mix. It’s one of the Golden State’s crowning achievements, built on hard policy and harder engineering, such as the Renewables Portfolio Standard and a mandate for 100 percent clean electricity by 2045. Natural gas still supplied roughly 40 percent of the state’s electricity. The state decarbonized the noon hour faster than the evening peak, the heat wave, and the smoky day, when solar output is low. Wind and solar are indispensable. Batteries are getting bigger and cheaper. But they are not 24/7 insurance and won’t be for years. America needs clean power beyond wind and solar. 

Right on cue, geothermal makes its grand re-appearance. READ MORE