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“The idea that we can unleash clean, affordable, dispatchable power – that’s the dream. That’s the holy grail.” — Governor Spencer Cox (R, UT) at the launch press conference Geothermal energy checks all the boxes: it’s clean, we can turn it on 24/7, and it promises new opportunities for American oil & gas workers whose expertise in belowground engineering is unparalleled. What’s more, there’s as much as 200 GW of geothermal potential in the Mountain West. For context, the entire US grid at its peak uses around 760 GW. It’s little wonder geothermal has bipartisan support at a time when energy affordability, reliability, and security are top of mind. But despite strong consensus, geothermal is held back by financing gaps, patchy data, and procedural misalignments between the entities producing and buying geothermal energy – barriers that were identified in the DOE’s 2024 Geothermal Liftoff Report. Center for Public Enterprise and Constructive founded the Mountain West Geothermal Consortium to convene state governments, developers, investors, utilities, and other offtakers to overcome those barriers and unlock responsible geothermal power at scale. Last week we launched the consortium alongside Governors Spencer Cox (UT) and Jared Polis (CO) in Salt Lake City, as well as holding an all-day kickoff workshop with state energy officials from Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Around 80 consortium members and advisors joined our workshop to explore and stress-test potential interventions that target specific problems, such as risk-sharing finance mechanisms and state-led procurement entities.
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