Geothermal energy presents a unique opportunity to address the global energy trilemma of security, sustainability, and affordability while supporting resilient infrastructure and urban development. Offering reliable, dispatchable heat and power, geothermal systems expand the role of renewables beyond electricity generation to include district heating and cooling, industrial processes, critical infrastructure, and the food-water-energy nexus. This paper synthesizes recent developments in three areas essential to geothermal deployment at scale: Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), closed-loop geothermal technologies, and digital twin-enabled thermal networks, alongside resource classification frameworks. Case studies from China, Europe, the Americas, and Africa demonstrate the increasing alignment between geothermal deployment and national decarbonization strategies, climate resilience planning, and regional development priorities. The analysis highlights that while institutional and financial barriers remain critical, technical challenges related to drilling cost, reservoir performance, and long-term system behavior continue to influence the pace and scale of deployment. Geothermal energy, if integrated within long-term planning frameworks, has the potential to evolve into a strategic component of global clean energy portfolios and climate-resilient infrastructure systems.
Brommer et al. (Mon,) studied this question.
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