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Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWjPpxoUTcg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWjPpxoUTcg
- iberator 4mo agoWow. That's interesting. Thats tx of 300ghz. Very interesting application of radio waves.
- eternityforest 4mo agoThey made the laser drill from The Core IRL?
- adrian_b 4mo agoExcept that it is not a laser but a high power radio transmitter made with a vacuum tube (gyrotron). For generating the highest possible power of radio waves, vacuum tubes remain the only solution. This drilling method resembles more a microwave oven (which uses a magnetron), than a laser.
- mncharity 4mo agoFwiw, I'll share some surfing: Nice article on an earlier demo: https://newatlas.com/energy/quaise-energy-millimeter-wave-drill-demo-houston/ https://newatlas.com/energy/quaise-energy-millimeter-wave-dr... ; linked from this (nice but lots lots of ads): https://newatlas.com/energy/quaise-energy-millimeter-wave-drill-demo-houston/ https://newatlas.com/energy/quaise-energy-millimeter-wave-dr... . Company https://www.quaise.com/ https://www.quaise.com/ on YT https://www.youtube.com/@quaise https://www.youtube.com/@quaise MS thesis (2024; browsable) on the vitrified wall, for that and its intro: https://www.proquest.com/openview/624989df3cdd8055a6cee9affcf6e4d8/1.pdf https://www.proquest.com/openview/624989df3cdd8055a6cee9affc... Search for papers "Millimeter Wave Drilling for Deep Geothermal Energy Production" https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=Millimeter+Wave+Drilling+for+Deep+Geothermal+Energy+Production&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=Mil...
- anakaine 4mo agoFrom the thesis: https://www.proquest.com/openview/624989df3cdd8055a6cee9affcf6e4d8/1.pdf https://www.proquest.com/openview/624989df3cdd8055a6cee9affc... "For the application in EGS drilling, this device uses a metallic waveguide to carry the millimeter wave (MMW) beam to a standoff distance from the crystalline rock. Argon gas is used as the waveguide fill medium due to its ability to stay transparent to MMW’s at such deep depths and thus higher pressures [12]. Purge gas is also used to pump out the excess material that has been transformed into smaller particles (Figure 2.4). " As a former geologist involved in drilling, thats going to get real expensive, real fast, in terms relative to regular mechanical drilling thanks to the requirement for argon. Perhaps theres an economically efficient changeover point at depth as mechanical drilling becomes less capable due to increasingly plastic deformation.
- tomtom1337 4mo agoYou mean the argon gas used as medium specifically? I assume the purge gas is something else, cheaper?
- anakaine 4mo agoIf the goal is to simply purge the content of the hole, compressed air is typically sufficient. That said, the wider the hole, and the deeper it is, the harder it is to lift material on air. To be clear though, I'd love to have one of these rigs on my old project and compare rate of progression and hole quality. Particularly when establishing the hole in sedimentary gravels and clays. I imagine casing will still be required. One thing that I'd be concerned about is the ability to collect samples if most of the material is being vaporised or melted. Similarly, the cooking of the side of the hole on the way down could make geophysical responses much more difficult to interpret. Sonic velocity would probably increase, televised would probably be harder to interpret, harder to spot hydrothermal infill in sedimentary cover, would it affect gamma tools (probably not) Edit: also wondering how the hole holds up around aquifers. Does the super heating cause wall instability immediately above the non geothermal aquifers as superheated steam is created? How does this affect the hole stability if we are not casing? Edit 2: if we are not casing, how does the hole hold up around aquifer sands, loose fill, fractured or brecciated mass? Edit 3: Also! Do we ream open the top of the hole to down past the last aquifers before the geothermal horizon? If not, how are we stopping stopping aquifers interplay and interaquifer contamination?
- aaron695 4mo ago[dead]
- justinhunt 4mo agoIts worth noting the original article was written July 2025. Not June 2026
- organman91 4mo agoThis company was previously featured on a video by Real Engineering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_EoZzE7KJ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_EoZzE7KJ0
- mikelitoris 4mo agoImpressive, but how long did it take to drill 100 meters? I didn't see a mention of that.
- DoctorOetker 4mo agoThey mentioned about 1 hour per meter at 1 MW.
- jauntywundrkind 4mo agoThe video mentions that they did all the drilling so far at 100kW and are expecting to start doing 1 MW within the year. I wonder what their transmission voltage is. They're talking about a 1km deep shaft. That feels like a lot of conductor to get to 1MW, unless you can send at 20kV or something high. Reciprocally though if you're not transmitting major force through a drillshaft, perhaps it still is a major net win for cost. Figuring out heat management down there feels like it would likewise be pretty tricky! Again I wonder though how that would compare to the heat generated from drilling and how much management/circulation that requires.
- tliltocatl 4mo agoBased on what I could find: They generate the RF on the surface and transmit it down the borehole thru a waveguide, so it's only limited by arching in the waveguide. Since we only need power transfer and don't care about multimode propagation, the waveguide diameter isn't limited, and probably on the larger side to reduce copper losses. And the heat management is provided by blowing argon which also carries abalated rock particulate to the surface. See the schematics here: the schematic here: https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/milimeterwave_drilling_snapshot.png https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/mi...
- LearnYouALisp 4mo agoI think we can use 1 Gulf War for units
- bilsbie 4mo agoDoes it vaporize the granite?
- vablings 4mo agoIt turns it into granite cotton candy.
- DivingForGold 4mo ago[flagged]
- andai 4mo agoCan someone explain how this works? A gyrotron is some kind of maser (like a laser but with microwaves). Are they vaporizing the rock?
- tliltocatl 4mo agoGyrotron isn't quite a maser, more akin to a free-electron (i.e. electron beam) RF source. AFAIR (might be wrong, but based on what I could find there: https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/milimeterwave_drilling_snapshot.png https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/mi...) they aren't literally vaporizing the rock, rather locally heating it til it crushes into particles that can be blown away.
- baron816 4mo agoI really like what https://www.deepfission.com/ https://www.deepfission.com/ is trying to do. They have the absolute simplest model for nuclear fission that I can imagine. They’re digging one mile (1.6 km) holes dropping low enriched nuclear fuel to the bottom, and filling them with water. The pressure from the one mile column of water is perfect for the reactor. From there, it’s basically a geothermal well. No need for an expensive containment dome, or expensive plumbing. If anything goes wrong, the nuclear fuel is already a mile underground. When the fuel is used up, they can leave it where it is since it’s below the water table. No need for expensive and hard to source highly enriched uranium. The hard part is digging the wells, but that seems trivial compared to Quaise, who’s trying to dig 3-20km wells. The Deep Fission wells can just go anywhere (perhaps next to a disused former coal turbine?).
- rgmerk 4mo agoThat sounds like an absolute nightmare to get approvals for.
- simonebrunozzi 4mo agoQuite the opposite. They use proven reactor tech, and they are now going straight to commercial, vs other startups that need to go supercritical first.
- rcxdude 4mo agoI'm not sure that makes the approvals that much cheaper and easier. As I understand it, the slight differences between existing nuclear power plants that are for the most part the same design is already one of the reasons why they are so expensive to build.
- leonidasrup 4mo agoBuilding nuclear power plant underground could save significant costs, because the massive containment building is made from nuclear grade steel and nuclear grade concrete and is very expensive. But you need a low cost excavation technology. https://ifp.org/nuclear-power-plant-construction-costs/ https://ifp.org/nuclear-power-plant-construction-costs/ "Nuclear-grade components don’t necessarily have higher performance requirements than conventional components. Reinforcing steel in nuclear-grade concrete, for instance, is the same material used in conventional concrete. Instead, the additional cost often comes from the additional documentation and testing required. Documentation requirements also increase costs indirectly, by reducing market competition among manufacturers. Because these requirements are difficult for manufacturers to implement, many simply don’t bother to manufacture nuclear-grade components." "Sources of Cost Overrun in Nuclear Power Plant Construction Call for a New Approach to Engineering Design" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243512030458X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243512... "Similarly, while our analysis identifies the rebar density in reinforced concrete as the most influential variable for cost decrease, changes to the amount and composition of containment concrete are constrained by safety regulations, most notably the requirement for containment structures to withstand commercial aircraft impacts. New plant designs with underground (embedded) reactors could allow for thinner containment walls. However, these designs are still under development and pose the risk of high excavation costs in areas or at sites with low productivity."
- NonHyloMorph 4mo agoMight want to do yourself a favor and figure out the implied question behind 400(?) It's... not a lot of work. At least for me personally it rubs me the wrong way to name an important metric in Fahrenheit and then to give an estimate with a question mark for the proper SI unit.
- Animats 4mo agoThat's impressive. But why are there no near-term products? If you can cut through granite and such this way, it ought to be useful for other cutting jobs. There should be useful tools, such as small units for drilling pipe holes through concrete and rock. Going for a 10km hole as the initial product raises the suspicion that the real product is the stock.
- swiftcoder 4mo ago> There should be useful tools, such as small units for drilling pipe holes through concrete and rock. We already have cheap and effective mechanical drills capable of these tasks, and it's unlikely a brand new technology can compete with those on cost. Unlike in the actual design niche, where mechanical tools are infeasible due to the temperatures involved.
- Karliss 4mo agoFor shorter holes traditional mechanical methods work just fine. If you are going to build a giant excavator you don't waste time making shovels for gardeners. The problem drilling deep into ground is that the power source on the surface of earth and drill bit deep underground are connected by long floppy noodle while the hole is getting crushed from the sides by bunch of elephants. It is difficult to transfer rotation from the motor/power source at the top to the boring head, and reinforce the walls to prevent them from collapsing, having whole thing heated to few hundred ℃ doesn't make it easier on hardware. In case of something like underground tunnels these problems are avoided by having hole big enough to fit the drilling machine as well as all the equipment and crew to reinforce the walls with concrete. The fact that people have made a way to drill few hundred to few km using mechanical means is already an engineering marvel. In the context of everyday manufacturing beyond the hole depth to diameter ratio of 5:1 things already start to get more complicated. With more specialized techniques you might get 10:1 - 100:1. A bit easier for softer materials like wood or if you don't care about precision. But for deep underground drilling we are talking about ratio of thousands to 1. It's not like they are not making tests at shorter depths. Once technology is sufficiently developed it might also trickle down to some shorter few km holes if geological conditions are right. Although probably never for something like few dozen meter water wells or making a hole in concrete at construction site. Not sure how well it works in soft dirt. Who knows about distant future, we now have relatively cheap desktop laser cutters, laser pointers, measuring equipment, microwave ovens, but those were not the initial products when developing those technologies. On the other hand some tech like wire EDM has remained niche manufacturing technology, even though modern electronics and software could allow making it much cheaper.
- esquivalience 4mo ago> it has successfully drilled to a depth of 100 meters, a milestone... Nope that's a 0.1kilometerstone.
- pitaj 4mo agoOr a hectometerstone, if you will
- epistasis 4mo agoThis company might not be very good at getting deep, but they have definitely figured out how to get press attention. I have been hearing about them for years in connection with enhanced geothermal, and while other companies are out drilling functional wells, Quaise is just getting basic drilling going, with seemingly zero promise of being cheaper than the alternatives.
- xchip 4mo agoFinally we know how piramids were built
- krunck 4mo agoHow do they keep the temperature of the borehole high enough so that the vapours don't condense on the borehole(and equiment) on their way out?
- m4rtink 4mo agoGotta need that to reach the source of White Rabbit signal at 8500 meters! ;-)