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Earth Power

Company Plans To Dig World's Deepest Hole To Unleash Boundless Energy (vice.com) 231

Posted by BeauHD from the journey-to-the-center-of-the-earth dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: A company that plans to drill deeper into Earth than ever before, creating holes that would extend a record-shattering 12 miles under our planet's surface, has raised a total of $63 million since its launch in 2020. Most recently, Quaise Energy, a startup that aims to revolutionize the geothermal energy market, secured $40 million in series A funding in February, reports Axios. The goal of these super-deep holes is to access a limitless amount of renewable energy from the heat deep inside Earth.

"This funding round brings us closer to providing clean, renewable baseload energy," said Carlos Araque, CEO and co-founder of Quaise Energy, according to BusinessWire. "Our technology allows us to access energy anywhere in the world, at a scale far greater than wind and solar, enabling future generations to thrive in a world powered with abundant clean energy." Geothermal energy has a low profile compared to other renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and hydro, but Quaise believes it is "at the core of an energy-independent world," according to the company's website. This form of energy is among the oldest power sources harnessed by humans, but it only accounts for about 0.4 percent of net energy production in the United States, which is the world's biggest geothermal producer.

Quaise, which is a spinoff from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), intends to pioneer this technology using vacuum tubes known as gyrotrons that shoot millimeter-wave light beams, powered by electrons in a strong magnetic field. Using these devices, the company plans to burn almost twice as far into Earth as the deepest holes ever made, such as Russia's Kola Superdeep Borehole or Qatar's Al Shaheen oil well, both of which extend for about 7.5 miles. Gyrotrons are powerful enough to heat plasma in nuclear fusion experiments, making them an ideal tool to probe unprecedented depths of some 12 miles, where subterranean rocks roil at temperatures of about 500C (930F). Water pumped into this searing environment would instantly vaporize as steam that could be efficiently converted to electricity. Araque and his team at Quaise plan to funnel their seed money into prototype technologies within the next few years. By 2028, the company aspires to retrofit coal-fueled power plants into geothermal energy hotspots, reports ScienceAlert. The process of drilling out these super-deep holes would take a few months, but once the setup is complete, they could provide limitless energy to a region for up to a century, according to Araque.
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Company Plans To Dig World's Deepest Hole To Unleash Boundless Energy More

Company Plans To Dig World's Deepest Hole To Unleash Boundless Energy

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  • FTA (Score:3)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Thursday March 10, 2022 @11:39PM (#62346335) Journal

    Geothermal energy has a low profile compared to other renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and hydro, but Quaise believes it is âoeat the core of an energy-independent world,â

    I see what he did there.

  • The press article reads like it was written by a 12 year old. Lots of hyperbole.

    Interesting that this HAS been demonstrated and tested in a laboratory so at a conceptual and basic practical level is sound but I would think the cost of the first hole is going to be astronomical in R&D costs as there is big difference between doing it in a lab and having a setup good to go in the field. The engineering issues of squeezing the whole gyrotron source and waveguide into a unit that can be passed down a hole p

    • The pipe is the waveguide, the gyrotron stays on top.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hoofie ( 201045 )

      Correction: I assume they would want the power source near the drill head. No it would be a very big high power surface gyrotron with waveguides acting as drill pipe with annular cooling and pressurisation.

      One is that the waveguide does not like bends so would have to be under constant tension to keep it dead straight so you cannot really steer it unless oil wells which can be steered in direction.

      • Correction: I assume they would want the power source near the drill head. No it would be a very big high power surface gyrotron with waveguides acting as drill pipe with annular cooling and pressurisation.

        One is that the waveguide does not like bends so would have to be under constant tension to keep it dead straight so you cannot really steer it unless oil wells which can be steered in direction.

        And then there is that pool of manmade lava at the tip. So unless this actually vaporizes the rock immediately (otherwise the hole just gets wider, and not much deeper) and it can be extracted, or bore a rather big hole for the rock vapor to condense onto, resulting in a much smaller hole - let's not forget the large volume differences with small increases in diameter. Still, with their promise of 20 kilometers in 3 months, they are claiming a bit over 222 meters per day. Or about 730 feet per day.

        BTW, t

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Stoutlimb ( 143245 )

      Press releases towards adults today are written this way because the education system has degenerated. Smart twelve year olds generations ago were basically adult level education today.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

        Press releases towards adults today are written this way because the education system has degenerated. Smart twelve year olds generations ago were basically adult level education today.

        How do you square this with the scores required to reach an IQ of 100 generations ago are lower than they are today? Objective evidence suggests your assertion is not correct.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Nah, it's just that traditional newspapers had a target market and people outside that market were unlikely to pay the price of entry (the cost of the paper). With the internet access is free, and linking means that it's possible to get readers from a wide spectrum. Therefore there is a tendency to cater to the lowest common denominator.

      • Press releases towards adults today are written this way because the education system has degenerated.

        Not at all. Press releases have always varied in complexity for a given audience. You look at the same news story from the Daily Express vs the Financial Times (obvious biases aside) they will use very different complexity of language and go into very different level of detail. Press releases balance how wide the target audience can be with the risk of glazing their eyes over.

        This has nothing to do with "adults today" or a degenerated education system. It has been this way since the printing press was first

    • Interesting that this HAS been demonstrated and tested in a laboratory

      In mice. Don't forget that one, it's not a real proof-by-press-release unless it's demonstrated in mice.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      The press article reads like it was written by a 12 year old. Lots of hyperbole.

      Just has been targeted at the intended audience: Lots of supposed adults these days have the maturity of 12 year olds. Just look at what some people write here and then remember that the people here are probably more mature and better educated than the rest of the population...

    • The press article reads like it was written by a 12 year old. Lots of hyperbole.

      That's because they know who is going to support such a project.

      Interesting that this HAS been demonstrated and tested in a laboratory so at a conceptual and basic practical level is sound but I would think the cost of the first hole is going to be astronomical in R&D costs as there is big difference between doing it in a lab and having a setup good to go in the field.

      Sounds like a basic Rankine Cycle.

      These people plan on retrofitting old coal plants, and using some way of actually burning through rock, will reach 3 to 20 Km deep in a "few months". I guess the idea is to use the cooled and now glass rocks as a pipe. Wonder how they are planning to extract the excess molten rock?

      Like you, I'm curious about that 20+ Kilometer cable running the Gyrotron that's going to "burn" the rock. This also assumes

  • Can I put one of these in my backyard? I'm thinking electricity, hot water, and heating all in one.

    • Can I put one of these in my backyard? I'm thinking electricity, hot water, and heating all in one.

      You can use a heat pump to suck energy out of your backyard to heat your house.

      You can then reverse the process in the summer to cool your house by using your backyard as a heat sink.

      Ground source heat pump [wikipedia.org]

    • You could. It really depends on your local rules. Can you drill in your backyard?

      Here is a map of the United States and its geothermal potential -> https://www.americangeoscience... [americangeosciences.org]

      I hope your HOA, or City Council sees your vision!

      --
      There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls. - George Carlin

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by necro81 ( 917438 )

        I hope your HOA, or City Council sees your vision!

        The presence of the drill rig for a few days is really no worse than, say, bringing in a crew to install a below-ground pool, which HOAs tend to smile upon. After that, (residential) geothermal is really out-of-sight, out-of-mind, so it's hard to see why anyone would object to it. This in contrast with, say, wind turbines and solar panels, which for various reasons (some legit, most totally overblown) people take issue with.

  • Rusty on how you would calculate the pressure of the super-heated steam, but isn't the pressure much more important than the temperature?

    • Subcritical – up to 705 F (374 C) and 3,208 psi (221.2 bar) (the critical point of water)

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      Once you are over 374 C you can have saturated steam at a good superheat or go supercritical. Supercritical steam isn't really steam, nor is it truly a liquid. Once you are in that realm there are no separate phases.

      https://onlinelibrary.wiley.co... [wiley.com]

      That is an article on Navy 1200 psi, 950 F steam plants. So you don't have to be super critical at 500 C.

  • I'm not sure I understand how this works. Do they expect the steam to travel several miles back to the surface without losing heat and energy? Are they going to put several miles worth of double-insulated piping into the ground?

    My gut reaction is that efficiency will be a big issue, like those solar roadways or dehumidifiers that suck "liters per day" of water right out of the air.

    • Guh? You, uhh, just poor more water down. Where does it go, do you imagine? He isn't what turns the turbine, it's pressure. Heat is used to make the pressure.

    • Maybe just insulate the top couple 100m and just use bare double walled pipe for the rest? Slowly heat the the earth along the pipe to 500 degrees, what's the worst that can happen?

      Otherwise triple walled pipe with vacuum insulation I guess, though the hole seems a bit narrow for it.

      • On second thought, except for the very bottom of the pipe they probably keep the pipe free of the wall, pumping something thermally conductive which solidifies in the hole at the bottom.

        The gas layer between the borehole wall and the double walled pipe should be decent insulation, not perfect but decent.

    • My gut reaction is that efficiency will be a big issue
      Under such circumstances, it does not matter.

      You pump water down and get hot water up. Who cares if you lose 50% or more of the "potential energy" as long as the cycle produces a surplus in electricity?

  • Some more technical explanations (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ljw1004 ( 764174 ) on Friday March 11, 2022 @12:35AM (#62346463)

    This story was light on the technical details. Here are some better links.

    https://newatlas.com/energy/qu... [newatlas.com]

    https://newatlas.com/energy/qu... [newatlas.com]

    https://newatlas.com/technolog... [newatlas.com]

  • When Iceland drills conventional shallow geothermal boreholes, they tend to keep liming up over time. New boreholes keep having to be drilled. Whether or not this new tech can be a practical source of geothermal power, how about using it to bore horizontal tunnels at conventional depths? Boring Company and others must be interested in this.

  • LOL, if they hit magma, can this cause a volcano? In Hawaii they can just drill horizontally.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Nope. At 500C rock is quite solid. Even if not, it would solidify farther up and plug the hole.

      • So if the drill head does hit a magma chamber, the lava won't shoot upwards through the hole fast enough to stay liquid? Is there some modeling to prove that? Also, do we have accurate deep underground maps to know where all the magma chambers are? My understanding is that we don't.

  • But what about the lizardmen that will also be unleashed by this?

  • Balrogs are really bad, m'kay? So just don't.

  • Dr. Who fiction becomes reality...what is described reminds me of the story "Inferno" [fandom.com] where scientists were drilling deep into the Earth's crust to tap into gas deposits for energy...causing the end of the world. Well in one reality, the Dr. (Jon Pertwee) managed to cross realities but then get back. How interesting a similar idea only in the real-world.

    JoshK.

  • Was talking to an old hand in the nz/au oil industry, a few years back. Reckoned a company he'd worked for had done some thing similar in Oz.

    Two shallower wells, with fracking to create passages through the rock between the two..

    Pump water down one, get steam out the other..

    But seeing as the water passed through the bare rock, it brought back lots of heavy metals, and radioactive goobies from the depths of the earth

    • But seeing as the water passed through the bare rock, it brought back lots of heavy metals, and radioactive goobies from the depths of the earth

      Yes, this is the problem with geothermal power in general. It's a massive problem at The Geysers geothermal power plant near Calistoga, CA. They actually created a superfund site by burying the drums of crap pressure washed off of the turbine blades. Now they are doing it in a concrete pit at the facility and just capping it off with concrete when it's full...

  • I'd like to see if Professor Jor-El has any objections to this proposal. :)

  • Bah, they're late on the scene. There's been the Icelandic Deep Drilling Project" [iddp.is] going on, and they don't need to drill so deep (because of the location):

    Feb 1, 2017 -- A significant milestone has been reached in the Iceland Deep Drilling Project at the Reykjanes Peninsula in Iceland when drilling of the IDDP-2 well was completed on the 25th of January at 4,659 meters depth. All of the initial targets were reached. These targets were to drill deep, extract drill cores, measure the temperature and search

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by wiggles ( 30088 )

      We could probably do something like that in Wyoming near the Yellowstone supervolcano - but unfortunately there's nobody in the area who really needs the electricity at a massive scale.

      Maybe some entrepreneur will figure out that they can make unlimited hydrogen fuel that way via electrolysis.

  • Just check their FAQ (Score:3)

    by pablo_max ( 626328 ) on Friday March 11, 2022 @03:05AM (#62346699)

    Most of the questions being asked here are already answered on their website.
    https://newatlas.com/energy/qu... [newatlas.com]

    The tech, while a novel application, is not unknown. There is no reason why it should not work as they imagine it will.

  • Obligatory quotes:

    Project Mohole - Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]

    Crack in the World (1965) - IMDb [imdb.com]

  • For some reason, I imagine professor Quatermass on site, studying some dials as the drill descends.

  • If you have questions about geothermal energy in general, check out Iceland. It's cheap, clean, & consistent. At the moment, the limitations are location & infrastructure costs. Making more locations viable by drilling deeper holes opens up more opportunities to hook into existing infrastructure, like coal powered plants with their steam turbines & being already hooked up to the grid. If this works out, it'd be a fantastic addition to the options available for quickly & cheaply transitioning
    • BTW, Iceland's looking into laying undersea cables to export clean energy to the UK & possibly mainland Europe (wherever electricity prices are high enough). Another thing with geothermal energy is that it's the most ancient form of heating living spaces & water. It's more efficient to pipe heated water around than to heat it at home (geothermal or solar). Steam generators usually have the problem of the wastewater being too hot to release into the environment but that wastewater can be put to good
  • I wish I could screw rich people and government out of millions of dollars too

  • the company plans to burn almost twice as far into Earth as the deepest holes ever made, such as Russia's Kola Superdeep Borehole

    I for one would reject any boundless energy from that hole! Because virtue!

  • If you sufficiently cool magma to prevent its flow, Earth will lose its magnetic field and become inhospitable to life.

  • Someone with more smarts than me (I'm an idiot) explain this one to me.

    Abundant, I get.
    Long lasting, I get.

    Renewable? Ummm, nope.

  • They are selling this as if they don't have to solve the casing problem, but hedging in their declaration: " 4) potential for replacing the need for casing/cementing by a durable vitrified liner." Then they go on to say that these holes will hold super-critical steam. At the very least, this will lead to heating beyond the casing and crushing rock pressures that no glass-like rock crystal will survive without cracking or softening. They may dig the world's deepest hole with this tech, but they are not go
  • No energy source is "limitless." What are they depleting when they extract energy from the deep holes? We used to think the atmosphere and oceans were "too big for humans to affect," but, well, we're in a bit of a pickle now.

  • If there is anything Superman has taught us, it is that drilling deep holes into the Earth can have unanticipated side effects.

    The Unknown People on IMDB [imdb.com]

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