House geothermal bill clears as DOE sees 90 GW potential by 2050
Federal permitting reform and falling tech costs could unlock a new baseload power source, but regulatory hurdles remain.
The House passed a bipartisan geothermal energy package on Tuesday (2026-06-02), clearing permitting rules for a sector the Department of Energy says could supply 90 GW of carbon-free power by 2050, enough for 65 million homes.3,6
Geothermal is one of the few renewable resources that can run around the clock, unlike wind or solar. The DOE's projection implies a roughly tenfold increase from current installed capacity, a leap that hinges on both technology and regulation.6,1
The legislation mixes Republican-led and Democratic-authored bills, reflecting rare bipartisan alignment on geothermal. The Trump administration has also backed the resource, giving developers something close to policy certainty — an unusual position for any clean energy sector in the current political climate.3,6
Yet the real bottleneck is not federal ambition but state-level permitting. Next-generation geothermal, which uses hydraulic fracturing techniques borrowed from oil and gas, faces piecemeal rules that vary by jurisdiction. Sage Geosystems CEO Cindy Taff told The Hill in February 2025 that "it's going to be the decade of geothermal," but outdated state regulations could slow deployment even if federal approvals accelerate.6,1
The technology overlap with oil and gas is not coincidental. Horizontal drilling and reservoir stimulation, perfected in the Permian and Bakken shales, are directly transferable to enhanced geothermal systems. The Bakken Formation alone has produced over 5 billion barrels of oil since 2007, and a second boom may come from applying the same subsurface techniques to heat, not hydrocarbons.4
North Dakota officials are pushing enhanced oil recovery in the Bakken, where only 15% of the resource has been tapped. "If we can create the policy and the incentives, and you all can unlock even another 15% with EOR, that's an entirely new boom," Lieutenant Governor Brent Sanford told a conference. Gas injection accounts for roughly 60% of all EOR projects in the US, and the same injection and monitoring skills could serve geothermal.4
The first utility-owned neighborhood-scale geothermal network in the US came online in Framingham, Massachusetts two years ago, owned by the state's largest utility. Hailed as groundbreaking, it marked the first-of-its-kind system for a major US utility and offered a template for scaling the technology beyond volcanic regions.2
US crude production hit a record 13.6 million b/d in 2025, with the Permian Basin alone pumping 6.6 million b/d — roughly 48% of national output, according to EIA data.7 The same basins that powered that oil boom now house the subsurface expertise and drilling fleets transferable to enhanced geothermal systems.
The economics remain challenging. Mordor Intelligence projects the global geothermal market growing at a CAGR of 10.42% through 2031, with Asia-Pacific as the fastest-growing region.5 But upfront capital costs are high, and the industry has yet to prove it can scale beyond the niche it occupies — roughly 0.4% of US electricity generation.6
The House bill removes one permitting barrier. State utility commissions, particularly in Texas and California, still need to adopt rate structures that reward geothermal's dispatchability over intermittent renewables. Without that, the DOE's 90 GW target by 2050 may remain aspirational.3,6