Post by Alphaxioms Geothermal Insights

One is hammering a path to superhot rock. The other is trying to beam one through the mountain. Two very different bets on the same goal: commercially viable superhot rock (SHR) geothermal power. Mazama Energy (the "Fracker"): → Advanced EGS using patented "Thermal Lattice" stimulation → World record: 331°C bottomhole temperature at Newberry Volcano, Oregon → 100 ft/hour peak penetration rate through granite and basalt → Backed by Khosla Ventures, Gates Frontier, $36M Series A + $20M DOE grant → Roadmap: 15 MW pilot in 2026 → 200 MW by late 2020s → Target cost: under $0.05/kWh at scale Quaise Energy (the "Vaporizer"): → Millimeter-wave drilling , a gyrotron melts and vaporizes rock, no mechanical bit → MIT spinout; successfully drilled 100m into solid granite at a Texas quarry demo → Backers: Khosla Ventures, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Corporation, Nabors Industries , MIT → Seeking $200M ($100M Series B + $100M grants/project financing) → Project Obsidian (Oregon): 50 MW by 2030, targeting 1 GW long-term The verdict: Mazama Energy de-risks near-term execution with existing supply chains. Quaise Energy is the moonshot that could unlock terawatt-scale resources anywhere on Earth , if the tech scales from 100m to 5km. Link in comments. Read the full head-to-head by Robert BULUMA 👇 #Geothermal #SuperhotRock #EGS #CleanEnergy #EnergyTransition #DeepTech #VentureCapital