A startup from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) called Quaise has earned $40 million in funding for using fusion power tech to drill 12 miles into the Earth and harvest the immense energy down there.
The company says that the capital is going toward leveraging fusion technology to drill one of the deepest holes of all time. If it proves successful, it could give humans access to nearly limitless energy.
In its press release, Mark Cupta, managing director at Prelude Ventures and one of the investors in the company, said that we would need a significant amount of carbon-free energy in the coming decades.
He also added that Quaise Energy offered one of the most efficient and nearly infinitely scalable solutions to power our planet and emphasized that it perfectly complements our current renewable solutions.
Using fusion tech to dig these ultra-deep holes could offer several benefits. Traditional drill bits are limited with how far they can go before the hot temperatures, gasses, and liquids prevent them from going further.
How will it work? The company aims to use a gyrotron machine that is used to create millimeter electromagnetic waves to super-heat plasma in fusion reactors. Instead of plasma, though, the startup will drill into the ground using energy beams.
Quaise Energy plans to launch its first full-scale demonstration machines in 2024, with its first commercial operation by 2026. However, there’s a good chance that hiccups like running out of funding or supply chain issues could prevent this from ever launching.
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