Beneath the Earth's surface is an inexhaustible mine of energy. To exploit this source, Quaise Energy , an American company, is working to open a well of tens of kilometers, and for this, a fund of 52 million dollars has been allocated for the creation of the first drilling station.
Also, the collaboration for the method of drilling the crust and underground rocks, which is also the most challenging process, will use a technique that has been studied for 15 years by MIT.
The deepest drilling to date was 13 km underground in the 1970s in Kola, a region of the former Soviet Union, but the difficulties were great, and no such venture has been attempted since.
The head of the American start up, Matt Houde, explains that the energy content of the heat stored in the depths of the earth exceeds the annual energy demand for the entire planet.
The drilling technique has passed laboratory tests proving successful, and work is underway on the designed platform, which generates millimeter waves with quite high power.
These waves along with high-pressure gas will be injected through a pipe to the bottom of the well, a process that will vaporize the rock formations. After the construction of the wells, it will be enough to inject water to have it on the surface in the form of steam, a process which would make the turbines work as in all power plants.
According to the researchers, reaching such depths would not cause earthquakes or serious consequences for the planet, while it would significantly improve the energy situation of almost every country on the planet. Thanks to the 221 bar pressure release in these pipes of what is known as "hypercritical water", with a temperature of at least 374 degrees Celsius, any power plant that previously operated on coal or natural gas could at least tenfold its capacity, with a very low cost.
The new technology promises the creation of several "wells" or rather pipelines with a diameter of 5 centimeters, at a depth of up to 20 kilometers.
This is not just theory, and the opening of the first power plant with this technology, with a capacity of 100 MW, is predicted by MIT within 2026, but recent events and Washington's clash with Moscow can significantly accelerate the start of work.