AN ENERGY company has plans to dig deeper into the Earth than ever before to bring renewable energy to the masses.
Quaise Energy has made a name for itself in the energy world since it launched in 2020 as a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) spin-off.
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Now the Boston-based company has said that it wants to use its pioneering drilling practices – based on technology developed by Paul Woskov of MIT – to tap into Earth’s natural geothermal energy.
The company specified that it wants to drill deeper down into the earth’s center than ever before, where rock temperatures are at around 932 °F (or 500 °C).
Should Quaise succeed in its mission, the end result would be completely renewable, inexhaustible, and easily accessible energy resources for the population at large.
“Geothermal does not require any fuels and does not produce any waste. It’s truly renewable, abundant, and equitable for all, even in the most challenging energy environments,” the company’s website writes.
To date, the deepest hole humans have drilled reached a depth of 40,318 ft (12,289 m), in a process that took 20 years.
However, Quaise said that its hybrid drilling rig, which utilizes a traditional rotary head to get through softer material and a high-energy beam to melt tougher stuff, can drill up to 12.4 miles in just 100 days.
For context, a depth of 12 miles can easily provide access to long-term green energy supply to any location in the world, according to a report by New Atlas.
“Deep geothermal uses less than 1% of the land and materials of other renewables, making it the only option for a sustainable clean energy transition,” Quaise writes on its website.
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Quaise CEO and Co-Founder Carlos Araque told New Atlas that while solar and wind energy is easier to access, the problem is that “there is not enough of it to power the civilization we have created with fossil fuels.”
He added that accessing geothermal energy instead “is a solution that can work for 95 percent of humanity.”
Quaise recently raised more than $63 million in funding and is hoping to get its drilling devices operating in the field within the next two years.
Longer-term plans consist of having a working system producing power by 2026.
And by 2028, the company hopes to be able to transform coal-fueled power stations into steam-fueled facilities, according to Science Alert.
