" " " " " " " 17 NOVEMBER 2022 WorldWide Drilling Resource® Gyrotron Technology and Geothermal Wells: Part 2 Adapted from Information by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) In 2018, Carlos Araque, who spent his career in the gas and oil industry and was the technical director of MIT’s investment fund, along with Matt Houde, who had been working with geothermal company AltaRock Energy, founded Quaise. Quaise was soon given a grant by the Department of Energy (DOE) to scale up Paul Woskov’s geothermal experiments using a large gyrotron. With the larger machine, the team plans to vaporize a hole ten times the depth of Woskov’s previous lab experiments. This is expected to be accomplished by the end of 2022. The team will then vaporize a hole ten times the depth of the previous one - what Houde calls a 100-to-1 hole. “That’s something [the DOE] is particularly interested in, because they want to ad-dress the challenges posed by material removal over those greater lengths - in other words, can we show we’re fully flushing out the rock vapors?” Houde explained. “We believe the 100-to-1 test also gives us the confidence to go out and mobilize a prototype gyrotron drilling rig in the field for the first field demonstrations.” Tests on the 100-to-1 hole are expected to be completed sometime in 2023. Quaise is also hoping to begin vaporizing rock in field tests in late 2023. The short timeline reflects the progress Woskov has already made in his lab. Although more engineering research is needed, ultimately, the team expects to be able to drill and operate these geothermal wells safely. “We believe, because of Paul’s work at MIT over the past decade, that most, if not all of the core physics questions have been answered and addressed,” said Houde. “It’s really engineering challenges we have to answer, which doesn’t mean they’re easy to solve, but we’re not working against the laws of physics, to which there is no answer. It's more a matter of overcoming some of the more technical and cost considerations to making this work at a large scale.” The company plans to begin harvesting energy from pilot geothermal wells reaching rock temperatures up to 932°F (500°C) by 2026. From there, they hope to begin repurposing coal and natural gas plants using this system. “We believe, if we can drill down to [more than 65,000 feet], we can access these super-hot temperatures in greater than 90% of locations across the globe,” said Houde. Quaise’s work with the DOE is addressing what it sees as the biggest remaining questions about drilling holes of unprecedented depth and pressure, such as material removal and determining the best casing to keep the hole stable and open. For the latter problem of well stability, Houde believes additional computer modeling is needed and expects to complete that modeling by the end of 2024. By drilling the holes at existing power plants, Quaise will be able to move faster than if it had to get permits to build new plants and transmission lines. By making their millimeter-wave drilling equipment compatible with the existing global fleet of drilling rigs, it will also allow the company to utilize knowledge from the gas and oil industry’s global workforce. GEO December 6-8, 2022 ~ Join the WWDR Team in Las Vegas, Nevada, for Groundwater Week - Booth #1330. See more events at www.worldwidedrillingresource.com online issue. Are you planning to go? WorldWide will be looking for you! Groundwater Week Booth 607 Ahybrid drilling rig will be used to combine state-of-the-art rotary drilling with millimeter waves. Conventional drilling and casing will take place closer to thesurfaceandmillimeter waves will continue theprocess through increasingly deeper and hotter rock. Image courtesy of Quaise Energy.
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