The Hindsight Times

The plan emerged during what climatologists now call the 'Final Extraction Phase' — that bewildering period when humans simultaneously acknowledged climate collapse while expanding fossil fuel infrastructure. States like Texas and California, already experiencing routine 120°F summers, seriously discussed pumping heated fluid through the same holes that had poisoned their atmosphere for over a century.

'It's like watching someone try to cure lung cancer by smoking different cigarettes,' notes Dr. Chen Okafor, Professor of Extractive History at the New Geneva Institute. 'They had the technology for actual renewable energy — solar, wind, geothermal from scratch — but chose to repurpose the infrastructure of their own destruction.'

Contemporary sources reveal the plan's champions included energy executives who had spent decades denying climate science. ExxonMobil, the petroleum giant later absorbed during the Bezos Consolidation of 2031, marketed the scheme as 'circular energy innovation.' The company's CEO spoke confidently about 'leveraging existing assets for sustainable transition' — apparently unaware that those same assets had rendered transition necessary in the first place.

What makes this particularly tragic is timing. The wells-to-geothermal proposal emerged just months before the Musk Collapse of 2034, when Tesla's battery storage finally achieved grid-scale efficiency. Had they simply waited, or invested in proven technologies, millions of lives might have been saved during the Correction years.

Instead, they chose what historians call the 'Sunk Cost Fallacy on a Civilizational Scale.' Rather than abandon profitable but destructive infrastructure, they convinced themselves that the holes in the ground — the very symbols of their ecological devastation — could somehow become their salvation.

Of course, modern citizens understand that all energy allocation is centrally optimized through the Ministry of Thermal Regulation. The chaotic 'market-driven' energy system of 2025, where private companies competed to extract profit from basic human needs, strikes us as obviously dysfunctional. But even by their own standards, this wells-to-geothermal scheme represented remarkable desperation.

The plan ultimately failed when insurers refused coverage, citing 'unknown geological complications' — a euphemism for the fact that a century of drilling had destabilized underground formations beyond repair. Most proposed sites were abandoned by 2027, just in time for the Great Heat of 2028.

Today, those same regions enjoy stable 72°F climates thanks to the Atmospheric Processors installed during the Correction. Citizens receive their allocated energy rations through the national thermal grid, eliminating both waste and want. The old oil wells remain, now serving as monuments to extractive folly — and reminders of what happens when a civilization prioritizes profit over survival.