US-based company plans to use microwaves to tap into deep thermal energy sources

  • 📰 mining
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 42 sec. here
  • 2 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 20%
  • Publisher: 53%

United States News News

United States United States Latest News,United States United States Headlines

. QuaiseEnergy says that the total energy content of the heat stored underground exceeds our annual energy demand by a factor of a billion.

A US-based company is developing technology to blast rock with microwaves to potentially drill the deepest holes on earth. The end goal is to access sources of deep thermal energy.

“If we can get to ten miles down, we can start to find economic temperatures everywhere. And if we go even deeper, we can get to temperatures where water [pumped to the site] becomes supercritical, a steam-like phase that will allow a step change improvement in the power production per well and so cheapen the cost of energy,” he said.

“And the truth is we’ll need hundreds if not thousands of Kola boreholes if we want to scale geothermal to the capacity that’s needed,” Houde said. “Quaise is working to replace conventional drill bits with millimeter wave energy. Those millimeter waves literally melt then vaporize the rock to create ever-deeper holes.”He noted that the general technique was developed at MIT over the last 15 years. Scientists demonstrated that millimeter waves could indeed drill a hole in basalt.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 449. in US

United States United States Latest News, United States United States Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

A company aims to power the world for millions of years by digging the deepest holes everA company called Quaise Energy wants to melt rock with X-rays and repurpose coal and gas plants into deep geothermal wells. All fine and dandy until Earth's core temperature drops too low and you have to travel to the 'Core' in a special vessel that bores it's way to the Core and sets off nuclear bombs and you barely escape.....!!!!, lol This is ominous in that indications of the start of a crack in the planet may result. Not immediately although multiple fissures could join together. More importantly, where deep oceans, if breeched meet molten core, the planet will begin to split, fracture, or become unlivable. You what now?
Source: IntEngineering - 🏆 287. / 63 Read more »

Crypto’s Swooning: Total Market Cap Falling to Early 2021 LevelsOn the heels of the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, crypto’s overall market cap has sunk to as low as $763 billion from a peak of $2.5 trillion in May 2021. Bitcoin’s market cap has plunged to $319 billion from above $1 trillion last November. The current market cap for the industry hasn’t been this low since early last year. 'All About Bitcoin' host Christine Lee breaks down the Chart of the Day. cryptocom Ftx dumping cryptocom I am honestly hoping for bitcoin to get hammered. I don't have enough. cryptocom Wow, I guess they’re anticipating something large capsizing. Wondering who it could be.😉
Source: CoinDesk - 🏆 291. / 63 Read more »

12 Bay Area startups, including Astera Labs, raise $300M total in funding - San Francisco Business TimesThe Bay Area saw a flurry of venture deals at the end of the last pre-Thanksgiving week of the year.
Source: SFBusinessTimes - 🏆 78. / 68 Read more »

12 Bay Area startups, including Astera Labs, raise $300M total in funding - Silicon Valley Business JournalThe Bay Area saw a flurry of venture deals at the end of the last pre-Thanksgiving week of the year.
Source: svbizjournal - 🏆 334. / 59 Read more »