A collaboration between a scientist from MIT and an MIT spinout startup energy company could open up a whole new direction for geothermal energy harvesting. The stakeholders are looking into repurposing decommissioned coal shafts, starting with an abandoned coal power plant in New York. The undertaking involves the innovative use of microwaves in a novel way as an essential step in the process and despite the complexity of the plan, the team hopes to have a pilot project operating by 2026.
Quaise Energy and MIT unite with an ambitious mine repurposing plan
Quaise Energy is a spinout company of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, so it’s no surprise that the startup and the institution are working together. The plan involves creating the deepest geothermal wells in the world using existing coal mining shafts as a starting point.
A location for the endeavor has already been identified in upstate New York—a long-abandoned coal power plant. Most people see it as a purposeless relic that only serves as a reminder of the kinds of electricity generation processes the world is trying to move away from, but Quaise Energy and Paul Woskov from MIT see it differently.
Woskov, a research engineer at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), has inspected the site and says that the plant’s power turbine is still intact and the transmission lines are still connected to the grid. He’s been working on an approach for 14 years that he believes will get the electricity generation system back online, this time, operating entirely carbon-free.
In other mining news, a potential new source of lithium has been discovered and it could change the face of the renewable energy transition in the United States.
High-frequency microwaves will be used to melt rock
Quaise Energy, which is in the process of commercializing Woskov’s work, has ambitious plans to use high-frequency microwaves to melt rock, a process that requires tremendously high temperatures. This is how the company is hoping to tap into the vast energy source below our feet by vaporizing enough rock to create the world’s deepest geothermal shafts.
The aim is to harvest geothermal energy at a scale to meet human energy consumption for millions of years. Quaise Energy believes if it can retrofit one disused coal power plant, the same process will work on any of them.
Is the new microwave-assisted geothermal harvesting tech viable?
There are still several engineering hurdles to overcome, but Quaise wants to be harvesting energy by no later than 2026. Some may find the plan unrealistic, but it actually draws on already-proven technology. Microwave-emitting devices called gyrotrons have been used in research and manufacturing for decades, and it’s this technology that Quaise is drawing on for its geothermal system.
Speaking about the next steps in applying the gyrotron tech to the geothermal project, Woskov explained:
“[Development] 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. 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.”
Most renewable energy technologies and options have exploded in recent decades, but geothermal energy has plateaued. This is mostly due to drilling being limited to depths of two miles, and there aren’t many locations on Earth where there’s enough heat to harvest that close to the surface.
However, Quaise’s planned use of microwaves to melt rock layers to reach deeper than we ever have before is the distinction between this project and others to date, and we may soon see the renewable energy sector entering a new phase in geothermal electricity production.
A different kind of geothermal endeavor underway involves extracting hydrogen from geothermal steam sites and it also has real potential to make an impact in the global transition to carbon-free energy sources.
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