HN

Comments (33)

• NonHyloMorph
  Might 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.
• Menu

  baron816
  I really like what 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?).
• Menu

  anakaine
  From the thesis: 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.
• mncharity
  Fwiw, I'll share some surfing:Nice article on an earlier demo: 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-dr... .Company https://www.quaise.com/ on YT https://www.youtube.com/@quaiseMS thesis (2024; browsable) on the vitrified wall, for that and its intro: 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=Mil...
• justinhunt
  Its worth noting the original article was written July 2025. Not June 2026
• organman91
  This company was previously featured on a video by Real Engineering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_EoZzE7KJ0
• iberator
  Wow. That's interesting. Thats tx of 300ghz.Very interesting application of radio waves.
• Menu

  andai
  Can someone explain how this works? A gyrotron is some kind of maser (like a laser but with microwaves). Are they vaporizing the rock?
• Menu

  eternityforest
  They made the laser drill from The Core IRL?
• Menu

  mikelitoris
  Impressive, but how long did it take to drill 100 meters? I didn't see a mention of that.
• bilsbie
  Does it vaporize the granite?
• aaron695
  [dead]
• DivingForGold
  [flagged]