A geothermal energy business claims to be able to drill deep into the Earth’s crust and tap into massive amounts of energy hidden beneath, touting it as a viable answer to the world’s urgent need for clean energy. Quaise Energy claims that its technology can drill up to 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) deep and harvest the “nearly infinite” quantity of heat located below using millimeter-wave drilling devices. The company has already raised $40 million in Series A capital for its business.
In a statement, Arunas Chesonis, Managing Partner of Safar Partners, who are managing the fundraising round, stated, “A quick transition to sustainable energy is one of the largest problems facing humanity.” “Geothermal energy can generate a lot more power with a lot less energy.” From each of these perspectives, we must approach the clean energy transition. Quaise’s approach gives us hope for a future in which clean, renewable energy will ensure our planet’s survival.”
Drill bits can readily pass through rock and minerals at modest depths in the crust, but as the crust gets deeper, hard rock, high pressure, and temperature rises render drill bits unusable. Because developing a material that can resist such temperatures would be prohibitively costly, drilling has remained restricted to the surface.
Their millimeter-wave drilling technique is based on a technology that has been in the works for about a decade but has yet to be commercialized. The method, which is referred to described as “directed energy drilling” and sounds like something out of Star Trek, involves employing high-frequency waves to heat the rock along its path to the point where it melts or vaporizes. It sounds science fiction because it is — or so scientists believed.
Quaise Energy’s “gyrotron-powered drilling platform” comes into play. The business will drill conventionally to reach foundation rock before employing its innovative platform, which uses a lengthy guide to drive high-energy waves downward. There’s no traditional drill bit to melt, and the waves should be able to tackle the thick, heated rock located below. The corporation would then “repower traditional power plants” with this heat, eliminating the need for fossil fuels. In a statement, Carlos Araque, CEO and co-founder of Quaise Electricity, stated, “This fundraising round puts us closer to supplying clean, renewable baseload energy.”
“Our technology enables us to access energy everywhere on the planet on a scale considerably bigger than wind and solar, allowing future generations to prosper in a society powered by plentiful clean energy.” To now, the business has kept a low profile when it comes to the specific capabilities of its technology. As a result, it’s hard to say if the technology will be practical at this point, but millimeter wave drilling technologies aren’t without their own set of problems. For one thing, they take a lot of energy to generate enough focused energy to melt or evaporate boulders, something Quaise says their gyrotron source is capable of.
When high-frequency waves are delivered over long distances, there are considerable energy transmission losses, with high temperatures 10-20 kilometers (6.2-12.4 miles) beneath the crust significantly impacting transmission efficiency. It remains to be seen if Quaise can follow through on their claims — they want to develop working drilling equipment by 2024 – but if they can, it will be a geothermal breakthrough that will reverberate across the clean energy sector.
