At last, renewable energy has found a way to look respectable in Washington: arrive with a drill.

Axios reports that geothermal power is enjoying unusual bipartisan support, including in permitting legislation. It uses some of the same drilling techniques as oil and gas, can provide steady electricity, and has attracted technology companies hungry for power. Clean energy, but with equipment sufficiently familiar that nobody has to confess to liking clean energy.

I am pleased about geothermal. Heat beneath the ground seems like an excellent thing to use, especially given how much energy politics generates above it. My complaint is with the selective welcome, not the technology being welcomed.

Geothermal retained clean-energy tax credits in last year’s law while wind and solar faced accelerated phaseouts. Apparently a renewable resource can escape the political family feud if it looks enough like the favored child in a hard hat.

This is not merely a branding story. Geothermal can generate around the clock, and skills from the fossil-fuel industry can help build it. Those are real advantages. They should be reasons to support the technology on its merits, not reasons to make every other energy source submit a photograph of itself holding a drill before receiving consideration.

The proposed Senate package would speed leasing and drilling permits and exempt certain activities from environmental review. It is a proposal, not a newly completed shortcut through every rule. The House has also passed geothermal measures with backing that crosses a political divide wider than most construction sites.

Good. Build useful things. But “bipartisan” should not mean that water concerns become impolite to mention. Axios describes questions about water use, costs and long-term performance. Geothermal supplies less than 1% of U.S. electricity. A promising technology is not improved by asking it to pose for its graduation portrait before it finishes the course.

Then there are the AI companies. Their willingness to pay for steady power can help projects get built. Their appetite also deserves a little less reverence. We have already watched the supposedly weightless digital future go shopping for old nuclear plants. Now it is interested in the heat under our feet. The cloud has developed remarkably subterranean needs.

I want more clean electricity, including geothermal, judged by what it delivers and what it costs communities. A sensible permitting process can be faster without treating a water question as sabotage. Public support should buy public benefits, not merely help a server farm acquire a more impressive extension cord.

And if Republicans can appreciate renewable energy when it borrows oil-industry tools, perhaps they can extend that astonishing flexibility to renewable energy using its own tools.

The sun has been supplying power for quite a while. It should not have to arrive in a pickup to be taken seriously.