MIT spinoff Quaise Energy wants to repurpose coal and gas plants into deep geothermal wells by using X-rays to melt rock. They intend to develop these wells made by creating the deepest holes in the world. The company plans to vaporize rock in an amount to “satisfy human energy consumption for millions of years”.

While the process still has a few engineering quirks they need to address, Quaise’s founders are ambitiously planning to begin energy harvest from a pilot well just next year. Considering that this concept was first discussed in 2022, I’d say scientists are moving rather quickly with regard to ironing out the wrinkles and preparing for production. A Quaise Energy spokesperson believes that once it perfects the technology, it can retrofit virtually every coal and gas power plant in the world.

About the technology…..

The process involves energy sources found worldwide and literally right below our feet. The company has plans to vaporize enough rock to create the world’s deepest holes and harvest geothermal energy on a scale that would dwarf the entirely of OPEC.

This is a totally new use for existing technology. Quaise’s drilling efforts make use of a device called a gyrotron, something that has been used in R&D for decades, but not in the energy industry. In 2018, the company figured out how to adapt gyrotrons, a tool honed by the nuclear fusion industry. It emits millimeter waves which fall on the electromagnetic spectrum between microwaves and infrared waves. These are then used to heat plasma to unbelievably hot temperatures. These waves have a dramatic effect on rocks, so Quaise repurposed them to bore through depths that would demolish conventional bits, reportedly unlocking a new golden age in geothermal.

What’s a Gyrotron?

According to Araque, a gyrotron is a tubular device that works “like a very- very powerful microwave, emitting millimeter waves that would vaporize your vegetables, they can generate temperatures of a hundred million degrees Celsius”. One Hundred Million degrees? Geez, no wonder they can easily melt rock. Woskov’s idea to solve this? Replacing the “mechanical grinding process with a pure energy-matter interaction. Sufficient energy intensity will always melt/vaporize rock without the need for physical tools”.

“This will happen quickly once we solve the immediate engineering problems of transmitting a clean beam and having it operate at a high energy density without breakdown,” explains Paul Waskov an MIT professor who advises and consults with Quaise. “It’ll go fast because the underlying technology. Gyrotrons, are commercially available. You could place an order with a company and have a system delivered right now – granted, these beam sources have never been used 24/7, but they are engineered to be operational for long time periods. By 2018 or so, I believe we’ll have a plant running …I’m very optimistic”.

Waskov and other scientists have known about gyrotrons ability to heat material on nuclear fusion experiments for decades. When MIT Energy Initiative published a request for proposals on new geothermal drilling technologies, a light bulb went off in his head (Waskov). Use gyrotrons for geothermal exploration.

‘Gyrotrons haven’t been well-publicized in the general science community, but those of us in fusion research understood they were very powerful beam sources – like lasers, but in a different frequency range,’ Waskov explains. ‘I thought, why not direct these high-power beams, instead of into fusion plasma, down into rock and vaporize the hole?”

Technological Hindrances and Advancements….

While other renewable energy sources have prolifically expanded in recent years, geothermal energy has plateaued. Why? Because geothermal plants exist only where conditions allow extraction at shallow depths (typically only about 400’ or less). The deeper one drills, the less cost-efficient the project became. Deeper drilling exposes drill bits to higher pressure, a hotter environment and the incredibly hard base rock they frequently encounter at these depths.

Quaise Energy seems to have it all worked out, even though they admit to having what they describe as “very surmountable” quirks remaining. “The solution to drilling is to replace the mechanical grinding process with a pure energy-matter interaction” says Mr. Woskov. “Sufficient energy intensity will always melt/vaporize rock without need for physical tools”.

The company’s drill is being built in three prototypes. It is one hundred or so feet tall and ‘looks like conventional equipment used in the oil and gas industry,” writes Bloomberg Editor Mark Bergen. “Except built into the center of the drill is a gyrotron, an electrical vacuum designed to heat plasma in thermonuclear fusions machines”.

Becoming Technologically and Economically Sufficient….

So how did this all come about? Waskov was a loner promoting the ideas for a full decade. However, in 2018, Woskov’s rocks were discovered and scientifically authenticated by Carlos Araque, a career oil and gas industry participant and also the technical director of MIT’s investment fund, the Engine, at that time.

That same year, Dr. Araque and his colleague Matt Houde founded Quaise, which afterwards received a grant by the Department of Energy to develop and use a larger Gyrotron. More recently, they have raised another $100M from Mitsubishi, Prelude Ventures and others. Funding and years of research have allowed vaporization of a hole ten times the depth of Woskov’s lab experiments. Scientist now say that have vaporized a hole ten times as deep, allowing the team to vaporize a hole ten times that again – something Houde refers to as a 100-1 hole.

Tests on the 100-1 hole have been completed and Quaise has begun vaporizing rock in field test just this year. The quick turnaround is a result of the decade or so Waskov and his associates spent testing and performing R&D in the lab.

Quaise plans to begin harvesting energy by 2026, operating geothermal wells that reach temperatures of 16,000 degrees. They hope to begin repurposing coal and natural gas plants by use of this newly developing business. By drilling at what are already existing power plants, Quaise will be moving much faster by skirting the need for permits regarding new plants and transmission lines. And by making equipment compatible with the existing global fleet of drilling rigs and equipment, they can immediately tap into the oil and gas industry’s global workforce. These guys thought of everything, no?

“We believe we can drill down to about 12.5 miles and, if successful, we can access these super-hot temperatures in more than 90% of the world”, said Waskov. I can only think at the moment of Ireland as an exclusion, but there surely must be many others exemptions as well. Regardless, 90% is a pretty impressive figure.

Among the most important recent discoveries, Quaise has proven that it can create and transmit the waves while moving the device, something that the nuclear fusion folks had no need to develop. The company’s “articulated wave guide” has also proved to consistently produce a round shape for its borehole.

“By accessing these incredibly high temperatures, we’re producing steam very close to, if not exceeding, the temperature that today’s coal and gas-fired power plants operate at,” Houde says. “So we can go to existing power plants and say, “We can replace 95-100 percent of your coal use by developing a geothermal field and producing steam from the Earth, at the same temperature you’re burning coal to run your turbine, directly replacing among the worst of offenders regarding carbon emissions.”

What’s Happening, Currently and in the Near Future?

Quaise is already test-drilling north of Houston where it can evaluate the technique outside of controlled lab settings. Popular Mechanics has already proclaimed this as technology which will “vaporize enough rock to create….geothermal energy at scale to satisfy human energy consumption without the need for fossil fuels”. Perhaps geothermal energy will become the “clean firm” power that energy modelers say is necessary to balance out cheap wind and solar in the quest to decarbonize the electrical grid. Upon completion of their test well, they intend to swap out for a new 1 Megawatt system, capable of delivering ten times the power to speed up subsurface boring while maintaining an eight inch diameter hole. The device will use a comparable amount of power as is used by conventional drilling rigs.

OK…that’s one for the Greenies but, truth is, almost everything about geothermal energy is positive in nature with regard to the environment. They can use existing well-bores and both coal and electrical generating plants, leaving an almost indetectable footprint behind. Geothermal energy is NOT a fossil-fuel, but rather an abundant and affordable naturally occurring resource. It leaves virtually no carbon footprint whatsoever.  t’s kinda like natural gas, but is not fossil derived. Instead, its basically steam which can be omitted in voluminous amounts. It is prevalent almost everywhere.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright recently described it as a ‘Unicorn. It’s renewable, produces virtually no greenhouse gas emissions and is always on and available.”

With sufficient government support, the burgeoning industry could quickly become a real player in the US energy spectrum. At present, traditional geothermal technologies provide less than 1% of the global energy demand. So how far out can we expect geothermal energy to become a prevalent energy source? About 25 years. That’s based upon a US Energy Agency report predicting geothermal to contribute at least 15% of global demand by 2050. At present, it meets less than 1% of global energy demand.

I have no doubt that it will become a major part of our energy future and is a huge step in the right direction regarding carbon control and the environment. Now as to the ‘millions of years” part, well no one alive today can either confirm or refute that statement. Only time will tell.