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comment by WanderingEng
WanderingEng  ·  1244 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Geothermal energy is poised for a big breakout

I think solar has two major advantages.

1. Construction is incredibly simple (compared to basically every other form of generation). Not that it's simple, but geothermal requires digging the thermal well and dealing with a boiler. Wind requires large foundations and large cranes. Solar is low complexity, high frequency construction. It's many small foundations.

2. Labor to run it is almost zero. Wind has this advantage, too. A geothermal plant will have 24/7 staff, but a solar plant probably has zero permanent staff and just a couple people who rotate between several plants to do routine maintenance like weed and rodent control.

I work in the utility business. Utilities are notoriously conservative (not meaning politically). Reliability is king, though the fight against "money" for that supremacy is real. That means there's a skepticism around batteries. It isn't a question of whether a battery could theoretically solve some future problem, it's more that there's question of whether a battery can be relied on today to solve a reliability problem at an affordable price.

Geothermal's one advantage here is it doesn't need a battery to provide continuous output.

I think the industry is collectively waiting for someone else to prove the reliability and business case for solar + batteries. Everyone is ready to pounce, but nobody is quite moving yet.