The deepest hole ever drilled drives 12.2km down below the border of Russia and Finland. The Kola Superdeep Borehole was an experiment to penetrate as deeply as possible into the Earth’s crust, but since 1995 it has been abandoned.

Now a company believes that new technology will be able to drill to depths of 20km. By doing so it could unlock terawatts of clean, geothermal energy for countries around the world.

Most geothermal energy is accessed just metres beneath the Earth’s surface and so is only viable in areas with a thin crust where temperatures are high at a low depth. However, by drilling deep enough, any country on Earth could be able to benefit from geothermal energy. This may be possible within a decade.

Guests

Matt Houde, co-founder, Quaise Energy

Paul Woskov, senior research engineer, MIT

Resources

For more information on Quaise Energy, click here

To watch the gyrotron melt rock, click here

The post #192 Drilling Deep for Geothermal first appeared on Engineering Matters.