Quaise doesn’t drill with a bit. It uses a millimeter wave system developed over more than a decade at MIT that vaporizes rock instead of grinding through it, with the aim of reaching temperatures of 300–500 °C almost anywhere on the planet, at depths beyond 5 km. Last year the company pushed more than 100 metres through granite at its field site in Central Texas — the first time the technology went into basement rock at full scale, outside a lab. It is now closing in on one kilometre at the same site.
Prelude Ventures led the $134 million first close, joined by JERA, Japan’s largest power generator, and Idemitsu, one of the country’s biggest integrated energy companies. Nearly every existing investor took part. Project Obsidian sits on federal geothermal leases in Oregon’s Deschutes National Forest, has gigawatt-scale potential, and is expected to deliver first electrons to the grid by 2030.
“Our ambition is to power civilization with Earth’s most compelling energy source,” said CEO Carlos Araque.
Additional project-level equity and debt are expected to be announced later this year.
