Geothermal is a risk-sequencing problem, says Ignis COO

Ignis Energy COO Marcus Oesterberg explains why geothermal projects fail when risk is taken in the wrong order, and where the financing gap sits today.

Geothermal projects rarely fail because the heat is missing. They fail because developers take risk in the wrong order. Marcus Oesterberg, chief operating officer of Ignis Energy, makes this argument in a guest editorial in the Journal of Petroleum Technology (JPT), published on 1 October 2026. He expanded on it in a Q&A with ThinkGeoEnergy.

Much of the geothermal debate today centres on new drilling, stimulation and closed-loop technologies. Oesterberg says the hard problem is different: “turning geological uncertainty into financeable infrastructure”. In his view, the petroleum industry is already built to solve it.

Geothermal is a risk-sequencing problem, says Ignis COO