Geothermal's Time Has Come
7 comments
·November 19, 2025CGMthrowaway
theanonymousone
Submarine articles for the win: https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
echelon
Ordinarily I would be down on this, but we need energy.
If money is being spent on this instead of adtech, so be it. Fake it til you make it, energy folks.
phreeza
Pasting a comment here I made on the previous article:
To me the most important fact to keep in mind about geothermal is that the energy flow across the crust is ~0.1W/m^2. Compare that to the sun which has >100W/m^2 even at high latitudes. Of course this does not mean geothermal is useless (in particular heat pumps, if you count those, are great), but it goes a long way to explaining why geothermal isn't seeing the same explosion as solar.
echelon
> Compare that to the sun which has >100W/m^2 even at high latitudes.
Some places are covered with snow and get under 8 hours of sun a day, but your point still stands.
You know it's pretty compelling when there are several concurrent multi-billion dollar projects to transmit solar power from Africa, by undersea cable, to mainland Europe.
neogodless
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45953568
The time has finally come for geothermal energy (newyorker.com)
2 days ago | 268 comments
Must be some PR firm issuing talking points right now.
Previously, the New Yorker with near identical headline: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45953568