For advanced geothermal, the first year of the second Trump term has been a good one. The tech’s rise into political prominence began last November, when then-nominee Trump announced former fracking executive Chris Wright, former Liberty Energy CEO, as his pick to lead the Department of Energy.
Wright was a strong proponent of geothermal prior to his nomination — Liberty, for example, is an investor in enhanced geothermal company Fervo — and emphasized his support for the technology during his confirmation hearing. His nomination was met with optimism by geothermal advocates who hoped it would bring additional funding and focus to the sector. Stakeholders also hoped that, with Wright in such a prominent role, the administration would preserve technology-neutral tax credits, and tackle permitting reform.
If the last 11 months are anything to go by, that early optimism appears to have been well placed; geothermal is well on the way to getting what it wanted from the Trump administration.
In July, when the GOP’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” took a hacksaw to the Inflation Reduction Act, geothermal was largely spared, thanks in part to Wright’s own advocacy efforts. Later this summer, when DOE sought proposals for the government’s plans to build AI data centers on federal land, the agency indicated an explicit interest in geothermal.
And earlier this month, geothermal got something of a promotion amid DOE’s structural reshuffling. The Office of Geothermal Technology, previously a sub-office within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, merged with the Office of Fossil Energy (previously the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management) to become the Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office.
Tim Latimer, the CEO of the enhanced geothermal company Fervo, is extremely optimistic about the agency’s restructuring. “The thing we’ve always complained about with geothermal is not anybody being against us, but people not being for us, and being forgotten about,” Latimer told Latitude Media. The reorganization, he added, “is a very clear signal of where this administration’s priorities are.”
The geothermal industry doesn’t expect to be supported at the same level as a resource like nuclear, he conceded. But nonetheless, Latimer is hopeful that policymakers are starting to see geothermal as a resource that can advance faster with less money: “You’re starting to see a push for parity there with geothermal catching up [to nuclear] from a policy standpoint.”
Geothermal’s turn at LPO?
Over the last year, the Trump administration has doubled down on federal funding and support for nuclear energy via a series of executive orders, the re-issuance of funding opportunities, a a “strategic partnership” with nuclear giant Westinghouse to build a series of new reactors with at least $80 billion in federal funding — though exactly how and when that latter funding will be spent remains an open question.
Geothermal won’t necessarily need those same tools or the same dollar figure, Latimer said, because “it’s at a much lower cost and lower risk than nuclear development.”
One financing tool Fervo is particularly excited about is the Loan Programs Office, recently rebranded the Energy Dominance Financing Office.
“The Loan Programs Office has always been a really important way to catalyze deployment of novel technologies, and I’d be expecting that, given that DOE leadership and the administration have made clear that geothermal is a priority, that there’s probably a lot of available funding mechanisms through that office,” Latimer said. “I’m very bullish on the idea that the existing authorization through the Loan Programs Office will be utilized to a great extent.”
LPO, once responsible for deploying $400 billion in federal funding, has seen a rotating door of directors, massive DOGE-mandated staff cuts, and at least one canceled Biden-era loan.
Title 17, LPO’s flagship program designed to support the deployment of innovative clean energy technologies, is likely the strongest fit for geothermal projects seeking financing. In fact, the office has already inked at least one deal for a geothermal project under that authority; in February 2011, the office issued a $97 million loan guarantee to finance a 22 megawatt geothermal power plant in Oregon.
But exactly how much support LPO — and DOE more broadly — will be able to offer to geothermal still isn’t entirely clear.
In its budget recommendations for DOE for FY26, published earlier this week, the Senate Energy and Water committee ordered LPO to “prioritize projects that expand the domestic supply of critical minerals” for Title 17 funding.
The recommendation maintains the administration’s proposed expenses, but is much more optimistic than the White House about the office’s returns. The Senate expects LPO to collect around $240 million from Title 17 loans next year, well above the $170 million in last year’s budget, and the nearly $92 million in the White House budget.
That higher number suggests lawmakers expect increased Title 17 deal activity, explained former LPO congressional affairs advisor Kyle Winslow. The Senate also declined to provide additional credit subsidies for nuclear, and to narrow loan authority to just a few technology categories, Winslow noted in his breakdown of the budget.
The budget proposal doesn’t reflect the recent restructuring of DOE offices, but in general, geothermal doesn’t appear to have been spared from the widespread cuts it proposes. Nuclear, meanwhile, was one of the only energy programs insulated.
In fact, the proposal actually contains a (gentle) rebuke of how DOE has been approaching the technology: “The committee is concerned the Department is solely focused on development of geothermal systems to generate electricity and is not appropriately considering the development of deep, direct use geothermal systems as a source of heat production.” (Geothermal is widely used as a source of heat in places like Iceland and New Zealand, though those applications are still nascent in the U.S.)
At the same time, the proposal encourages DOE to conduct geothermal “data acquisition” in regions where mapping of subsurface resources are sparse; it allocates funding including $100 million for “enhanced geothermal system demonstrations” and $75 million for research and development.
The Senate also endorses DOE spending on a few key areas that align closely with secondary commercial goals for geothermal companies, namely data center integration and underground storage.
