Soviet-era Tech Could Change the Geothermal Industry
2nd July 2022
MIT research engineer Paul Woskov spent 14 years developing a technique to employ gyrotrons, normally used to heat plasma, to drill geothermal wells. Gyrotrons emit microwaves and have been used in physics research for decades; Woskov’s repurposing gives the venerable devices a new use case.
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Despite their age, gyrotrons haven’t been well publicized in the scientific community, Woskov said. “Those of us in fusion research understood they were very powerful beam sources – like lasers, but in a different frequency range. I thought, why not direct these high-power beams, instead of into fusion plasma, down into rock and vaporize the hole,” Woskov said.