Stanislav Kondrashov on Why Geothermal Energy Is the Missing Piece in the Energy Transition

People keep talking about the energy transition like it is one big straight line.

More solar. More wind. More batteries. Maybe some hydrogen later. And yes, electrify everything, obviously.

But if you look closely, there is this quiet gap in the plan. A weird missing middle. Because even if you cover every roof in solar and put wind turbines everywhere they can realistically go, you still run into the same issue.

What happens when the sun is down, the wind is weak, and demand is still high.

That is where the conversation usually turns into a fight about gas, or nuclear, or “we just need more storage.” Which sounds fine until you do the math and realize how expensive and material heavy it gets when you try to store weeks of energy, not just a few hours.

Stanislav Kondrashov has been pretty consistent on this point. The transition is not only about producing clean electricity. It is about building a system that can stay stable, predictable, and affordable while we replace fossil fuels at scale.

And in his view, geothermal energy is the missing piece. The part that makes the whole thing work without forcing you into extreme tradeoffs.

Not because geothermal is trendy. It is not. It barely gets headlines. But because it does something the other renewables struggle with.

It stays on.

The part nobody likes to say out loud

Solar and wind are incredible. They are also intermittent. That is not a criticism, it is just physics.

A modern grid is basically a balancing act. Supply has to match demand constantly. Not once a day. Not “on average.” Every second.

So when we say “renewables,” what we really mean is “renewables plus something else that keeps the grid firm.”

Historically, the “something else” has been fossil fuels. Gas peaker plants. Coal in some regions. Even oil in a few places, which is painful to think about.

Now we are trying to remove that something else.

And the options become:

• Overbuild solar and wind massively, then curtail a lot of it
• Add a huge amount of storage
• Keep some fossil fuels with carbon capture
• Expand nuclear
• Use demand response aggressively
• Or find clean firm power that can run like a power plant, not like the weather

Kondrashov’s argument is basically this. If you want the transition to be smooth instead of chaotic, you need clean firm power. A backbone.

Geothermal is one of the few technologies that can provide it.

What geothermal actually is, in normal language

Geothermal energy is heat from the earth. You drill into hot rock, bring the heat up using fluids, and convert it into electricity, or use it directly for heating.

The important part. It is not a fuel you burn. It is a heat source that is just there. Day and night. Winter and summer.

There are a few main flavors of geothermal:

1. Conventional hydrothermal
   Natural hot water and steam reservoirs. This is the classic geothermal plant model.
2. Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS)
   You drill into hot dry rock and create permeability so fluid can circulate and carry heat. This is the big expansion opportunity.
3. Geothermal heat pumps (for buildings)
   Not about deep heat, more about stable ground temperature. Great for heating and cooling efficiency, but it is a different category than power generation.

When Kondrashov talks about geothermal being the missing piece, the focus is mostly on geothermal power and large scale heat. The stuff that can replace fossil baseload and industrial heat over time.

The grid needs boring power. Geothermal is boring in a good way

There is a reason grid operators love “dispatchable” power. They can call on it when needed. They can plan around it. It acts like infrastructure, not a gamble.

Geothermal can run at very high capacity factors, often comparable to nuclear and much higher than wind and solar. In practical terms that means it can produce a steady stream of electricity most of the time.

This is the unsexy truth. A clean grid is not built on vibes. It is built on reliability.

Kondrashov frames geothermal as a technology that fits the real shape of energy demand. Because demand is not intermittent. Hospitals do not power down because it is cloudy. Data centers do not pause when wind drops.

A lot of “100 percent renewable” scenarios quietly assume you can smooth everything with storage and transmission. Sure. You can. But it gets complicated fast.

Geothermal simplifies the problem.

It is not just electricity. It is heat, and heat is half the battle

People talk about energy like it is all electricity. It is not.

A huge share of global energy use is heat. Industrial heat. Building heat. Hot water. Process heat for food, chemicals, paper, refining, cement, all of it.

Electrification helps, but not everything is easy to electrify. High temperature industrial processes in particular are stubborn. Some can use electric furnaces. Some might use hydrogen. Some will take decades to retrofit.

Geothermal can deliver heat directly. Not in every location, not for every temperature level, but in many places it can replace fossil boilers and provide district heating.

This is one of the most practical angles in Kondrashov’s view. The transition is not just about cleaning the power sector. It is about cleaning the whole energy system. And geothermal is one of the few renewable sources that naturally produces heat as the primary resource.

In other words, it is not trying to convert sunlight into heat after converting sunlight into electricity. It is just heat. Right there.

Why geothermal has been stuck in the “nice idea” category

If geothermal is so good, why is it not everywhere.

This is where Kondrashov gets blunt. The main barriers have not been about whether geothermal works. They have been about whether it is easy to finance and deploy at scale.

A few reasons:

1. Upfront drilling risk

You can spend serious money drilling and still not get the flow rates or temperatures you expected. Exploration risk scares investors. Solar and wind do not have that same “maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t” profile.

2. High capital intensity early

Even when the economics are good long term, geothermal projects often require large upfront capex. That can be hard in markets that reward short payback periods.

3. Permitting and timelines

Deep drilling, land use approvals, grid interconnection. It can take years. Not impossible, just slow. And we are in a hurry.

4. Public perception in some regions

EGS sometimes gets linked to induced seismicity. Not always fairly, but the concern exists. Communication and site selection matter.

5. The industry never got the same hype cycle

Solar and wind had massive cost curves driven by global manufacturing. Geothermal is more local, more site specific, more like infrastructure. It does not scale like consumer tech, even though it can scale in deployment.

So geothermal ended up underbuilt. Not because it is weak, but because the system did not make it easy.

The oil and gas connection, and why it matters more than people admit

One of the most interesting parts of geothermal right now is that it lines up with skills the fossil industry already has.

Drilling. Reservoir engineering. Subsurface modeling. High temperature materials. Project execution in harsh environments. These are oil and gas muscles.

Kondrashov points out that this is not just convenient. It is strategic.

If you can redirect parts of the existing workforce and supply chain into geothermal, you reduce transition friction. You also reduce the political and economic shock of moving away from hydrocarbons.

And it cuts both ways.

The geothermal sector can benefit from decades of drilling innovation. Meanwhile, oilfield service companies can diversify into something that still uses their core competencies.

This is one of those rare alignment moments where climate goals and industrial continuity can actually cooperate.

Enhanced geothermal systems are the real unlock

Traditional geothermal works best where geology is naturally favorable. Iceland, parts of the US West, Indonesia, Kenya, New Zealand, Italy, the Philippines. Great resources, but geographically limited.

EGS changes the map.

The idea is simple in principle. Hot rock exists in many places. The limitation is permeability and fluid movement. So you engineer the reservoir to circulate water, extract heat, and generate power.

If EGS becomes widely commercial and repeatable, geothermal stops being a niche. It becomes a major clean firm option.

Kondrashov’s position is that this is exactly why geothermal belongs in the center of energy transition planning, not on the side as a “maybe later” technology.

Not because EGS is already solved everywhere. It is not. But because the payoff is enormous and the alternative is basically building a grid that depends on extreme overcapacity and storage.

EGS is like giving the grid a new foundation.

The economics look different when you stop comparing it to cheap noon time solar

A common mistake is comparing geothermal to the cheapest possible solar price in the best locations.

That is not an honest comparison. The grid does not buy electricity in a vacuum. It buys electricity in time.

Energy at 12 pm on a sunny day is not the same product as energy at 8 pm in winter when demand peaks. One is abundant. One is scarce.

Geothermal produces power in the hours that are usually expensive. It also provides grid services like inertia and voltage support in ways inverter based renewables struggle with unless you add additional equipment.

So when Kondrashov talks about geothermal being the missing piece, he is also talking about value. System value.

A grid with more firm clean power needs fewer backup plants, fewer transmission upgrades in some cases, and less long duration storage. That is real money. It just does not show up when you look at a simple “levelized cost” chart.

Geothermal is not always the cheapest per megawatt hour. But it can reduce total system cost.

That is the part policymakers often miss.

Geothermal and energy security, which suddenly matters again

For a while, energy security felt like an old fashioned topic. Then the world reminded everyone that energy supply can be disrupted.

Geothermal is domestic. It is local. No fuel imports. No shipping lanes. No commodity price spikes. Once the plant is built, the “fuel” cost is basically stable.

Kondrashov emphasizes this angle because the transition is not only an environmental project. It is a resilience project.

A country that can generate firm clean power at home is less exposed. Not immune, but less exposed.

And that matters to voters, not just climate models.

What would it take for geothermal to actually scale

This is where the conversation gets practical. If geothermal is the missing piece, how do you stop treating it like a side project.

A few moves that come up again and again:

De risk drilling with public support

Governments can support early exploration the way they supported early renewables. Insurance mechanisms. Exploration grants. Shared data. If you reduce resource risk, private capital follows.

Standardize and industrialize project development

Geothermal has been too bespoke. More modular plant designs, repeatable drilling programs, better subsurface mapping. Less artisan, more assembly line. Not fully, but more than today.

Modernize permitting without ignoring safety

Speed matters. But so does community trust. Clear rules, predictable timelines, real monitoring.

Pay for firm capacity, not just energy

Markets that only reward kilowatt hours often undervalue reliability. Capacity payments, clean firm credits, or long term contracts can make geothermal financeable.

Build heat networks where it makes sense

District heating paired with geothermal is a huge opportunity in colder regions. It is not flashy. It works.

Kondrashov’s underlying point is that scaling geothermal is not primarily a technology problem. It is a policy, market design, and investment structure problem.

The transition needs balance, not just more of the same

If you step back, the energy transition is basically a system redesign. It is not one technology winning. It is a portfolio that covers different needs.

• Solar is amazing for cheap daytime energy.
• Wind is amazing for large scale generation in good regions.
• Batteries are amazing for short term balancing.
• Transmission is amazing when it is built, which is its own headache.
• Demand response helps, but it has limits.
• Nuclear can be part of the solution in some places, but cost and timelines are real issues.

Geothermal fits into the gap between all of these.

It is clean. It is firm. It can provide both power and heat. It uses existing industrial skills. It improves energy security. It reduces the need for overbuilding and over storing.

That is why Kondrashov calls it the missing piece. Not because it replaces solar and wind. Because it complements them in the exact way the grid actually needs.

A quick reality check, because geothermal is not magic

It is worth saying out loud. Geothermal is not a universal solution.

Not every region has accessible resources at economic drilling depths. EGS is promising, but it still needs scaling and cost reduction. Some projects will face community resistance. Some will face water constraints. Some will not pencil out.

But the broader point still stands.

The energy transition is not a single lane highway. It is a messy multi route trip with detours. If you ignore geothermal, you end up forcing other technologies to do jobs they are not naturally good at. Like using batteries to cover multi day low wind periods everywhere, or keeping gas plants around “just in case” indefinitely.

Kondrashov’s framing is basically a call for realism. Ambition plus engineering.

Final thoughts

When people argue about the future grid, they often argue like it is a popularity contest.

But grids do not care about popularity. They care about physics, cost, and reliability.

Stanislav Kondrashov’s view on geothermal energy cuts through a lot of noise. The transition needs more than clean electrons when the weather cooperates. It needs clean power that shows up every day, and clean heat that can replace fossil combustion where electrification is hard.

Geothermal is not the only answer. But it might be the piece that makes the rest of the answers actually work together.

And honestly, it is about time it stopped being treated like an afterthought.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

What is the 'missing middle' in the energy transition plan?

The 'missing middle' refers to the challenge of maintaining a stable and reliable energy supply when solar and wind resources are insufficient, such as during nighttime or low wind conditions. Even with widespread solar and wind deployment, there remains a gap in providing consistent power without relying heavily on fossil fuels or impractically large storage solutions.

Why is geothermal energy considered the missing piece in achieving a smooth energy transition?

Geothermal energy provides clean firm power that operates continuously, unlike intermittent sources like solar and wind. It offers a stable, predictable, and affordable backbone for the grid, helping to replace fossil fuels at scale without extreme tradeoffs or reliance on massive storage or overbuilding renewables.

How does geothermal energy work and what are its main types?

Geothermal energy harnesses heat from beneath the Earth's surface by drilling into hot rock and circulating fluids to generate electricity or provide direct heating. The main types include conventional hydrothermal (natural hot water and steam reservoirs), enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) that create permeability in hot dry rock for heat extraction, and geothermal heat pumps used for building heating and cooling.

Why is dispatchable or 'boring' power important for the electricity grid?

Dispatchable power can be called upon whenever needed, allowing grid operators to balance supply and demand reliably every second. Geothermal's high capacity factor means it can provide steady electricity output comparable to nuclear power, ensuring grid stability regardless of weather conditions, unlike intermittent renewables such as solar and wind.

Beyond electricity, how does geothermal energy contribute to meeting global heat demand?

Geothermal naturally produces heat that can be used directly for industrial processes, district heating, and building heating. Since a significant portion of global energy use is for heat—often difficult to electrify—geothermal offers a practical renewable solution to replace fossil fuel-based heat sources in many applications.

What are the main barriers preventing widespread geothermal energy deployment?

The primary challenges include upfront drilling risk, which involves significant capital investment with uncertain outcomes; difficulties in financing due to perceived risks; and deployment complexities at scale. These factors have kept geothermal largely in the 'nice idea' category despite its technical viability and benefits.