cheryl
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Startup Will Drill 12 Miles Into Earth’s Crust to Tap the Boundless Energy Below - SingularityHub
When it comes to renewable energy, almost all the love goes to solar and wind. Which isn’t surprising, given the tear both technologies have been on of late.
But solar and wind have their drawbacks. Neither is continuously reliable nor universally practical. That means energy storage and transportation are crucial. And while there are promising trends on both fronts, to date, batteries are still expensive and resource-intensive to make, maintain, and replace, and new infrastructure takes time to build. Not to mention the fact that wind and solar take up a lot of space to generate energy.
So, what if there was a nearly limitless source of energy available anywhere on the planet? What if the only thing preventing us from tapping said energy source was technology? And what if that tech drew on the expertise of a century-old, trillion-dollar industry, and could readily slot into much of the infrastructure already built for that industry?
The answer to these questions is and has always been directly beneath our feet. The core of our planet is hotter than the surface of the sun—all we have to do is drill deep enough to liberate some of its heat. At least, that’s the dream Quaise Energy is pitching, and the startup, spun out of MIT in 2018, recently secured $40 million in new funding to go after it.
When it comes to renewable energy, almost all the love goes to solar and wind. Which isn’t surprising, given the tear both technologies have been on of late.
But solar and wind have their drawbacks. Neither is continuously reliable nor universally practical. That means energy storage and transportation are crucial. And while there are promising trends on both fronts, to date, batteries are still expensive and resource-intensive to make, maintain, and replace, and new infrastructure takes time to build. Not to mention the fact that wind and solar take up a lot of space to generate energy.
So, what if there was a nearly limitless source of energy available anywhere on the planet? What if the only thing preventing us from tapping said energy source was technology? And what if that tech drew on the expertise of a century-old, trillion-dollar industry, and could readily slot into much of the infrastructure already built for that industry?
The answer to these questions is and has always been directly beneath our feet. The core of our planet is hotter than the surface of the sun—all we have to do is drill deep enough to liberate some of its heat. At least, that’s the dream Quaise Energy is pitching, and the startup, spun out of MIT in 2018, recently secured $40 million in new funding to go after it.