Paging u/Animats, who had some interesting thoughts on a previous write-up of Quaise which had less info. I think he mentioned that gyrotrons had not been deplo

Paging u/Animats, who had some interesting thoughts on a previous write-up of Quaise which had less info. I think he mentioned that gyrotrons had not been deployed for this use-case and that should make us skeptical because sticking one on the end of a multi-km long drill bit sounds Hard(tm). An adviser of Quaise (an MIT research engineer) claims: > “This will happen quickly once we solve the immediate engineering problems of transmitting a clean beam and having it operate at a high energy density without breakdown,” explains Woskov, who is not formally affiliated with Quaise but serves as an advisor. “It’ll go fast because the underlying technology, gyrotrons, are commercially available. You could place an order with a company and have a system delivered right now — granted, these beam sources have never been used 24/7, but they are engineered to be operational for long time periods. In five or six years, I think we’ll have a plant running if we solve these engineering problems. I’m very optimistic.” Interested in what others think here. Seems overly optimistic to me. It's a really elegant solution though if it works; the idea of boring a hole in an existing coal plant and repurposing the old steam turbine & transmission equipment sounds like it could really lower the cost.