Description:
How Fusion Tech Just Changed Geothermal Energy Forever.
Two and a half years ago, I told you about a company using “death rays” to drill deeper into the Earth than anyone has before. The goal? Unlock cheaper and more plentiful geothermal energy for the world. Well, I just got back from Houston, Texas, where I watched them do exactly that. They melted through solid granite with millimeter waves in real time. We’re not talking lab experiments anymore. This drilling operation could change how we think about geothermal energy. The heat beneath our feet could be the most versatile, reliable, and abundant energy source ever — but it’s out of reach for most people. While the old joke goes that nuclear fusion is always just 30 years away, an offshoot of fusion tech may be changing the future of geothermal drilling today. So, does this team have what it takes? Or is Quaise out of its depth?
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A technology devised for fusion reactors is being adapted to geothermal drilling?
And will research into this tech feed back into the Fusion search?
Some experts caution that reinventing drilling won’t be as simple, or as fast, as Quaise’s leadership hopes. The startup is also attempting to raise a large funding round this year, at a time when economic uncertainty is slowing investment and the US climate technology industry is in a difficult spot politically because of policies like tariffs and a slowdown in government support. Quaise’s big idea aims to accelerate an old source of renewable energy. This make-or-break moment might determine how far that idea can go.
Rough calculations from the geothermal industry suggest that enough energy is stored inside the Earth to meet our energy demands for tens or even hundreds of thousands of years, says Matthew Houde, cofounder and chief of staff at Quaise. After that, other sources like fusion should be available, “assuming we continue going on that long, so to speak,” he quips.
Quaise’s goal is to heat up the target rock, effectively drilling it away. The gyrotron beams waves at a target rock via a waveguide, a hollow metal tube that directs the energy to the right spot. (One of the company’s main technological challenges is to avoid accidentally making plasma, an ionized, superheated state of matter, as it can waste energy and damage key equipment like the waveguide.)
Here’s how it works in practice: When Quaise’s rig is drilling a hole, the tip of the waveguide is positioned a foot or so away from the rock it’s targeting. The gyrotron lets out a burst of millimeter waves for about a minute. They travel down the waveguide and hit the target rock, which heats up and then cracks, melts, or even vaporizes.
Then the beam stops, and the drill bit at the end of the waveguide is lowered to the surface of the rock, rotating and scraping off broken shards and melted bits of rock as it descends. A steady blast of air carries the debris up to the surface, and the process repeats. The energy in the millimeter waves does the hard work, and the scraping and compressed air help remove the fractured or melted material away.
This system is what I saw in action at the company’s Houston headquarters. The drilling rig in the yard is a small setup, something like what a construction company might use to drill micro piles for a foundation or what researchers would use to take geological samples. In total, the gyrotron has a power of 100 kilowatts. A cooling system helps the superconducting magnet in the gyrotron reach the necessary temperature (about -200 °C), and a filtration system catches the debris that sloughs off samples.
Needs to be more complicated.