They only need billion of those green energy dollars to prove that the drill pipe will melt long before they reach their target…..another tax payer money pit….
Think of it as like pushing a small, hot soldering iron head deep into a block of compressed thermoplastic beads. Along the way, a stable tube of formed plastic is also created.
The funding for this new technology is private, with utilities seen as the definitive customers. The plan is to put a geothermal well next to existing fossil fuel plants. This is projected to replace greenhouse gases and to make use of existing permits and connections to the grid.
Unmentioned in the article is that the same technology is expected to improve tunnel boring machines. Instead of mechanically crushing rock with a massive drill head to bore a tunnel, millimeter wave energy generated by a much smaller and lighter machine will shatter rock into small bits that can be flushed away and pumped up to the surface. That should also make hard rock mining much easier, cheaper, and safer.
All of which assumes that there are not some unforeseen technological or economic show stoppers lying in wait.
Read the article. No pipe involved