deep-drilling
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Carlos Araque
Carlos Araque is the co-founder, president and CEO of Quaise Energy, a Houston- and Cambridge-based startup trying to drill the deepest holes in human history to tap superhot geothermal heat. A Medellin-born mechanical engineer with two MIT degrees, he spent 15 years at oilfield-services giant Schlumberger, then ran technology at MIT's venture platform The Engine, where he met the plasma physicist whose millimeter-wave drilling idea became Quaise. His pitch: vaporize rock instead of grinding it, reach depths where water turns supercritical, and use the resulting heat to run the same turbines and power plants fossil fuels use today.
Mark Russell
Mark Russell is the founder and CEO of HyperSciences, a Spokane, Washington company turning a piece of aerospace exotica - the ram accelerator - into a tool that drills through rock up to ten times faster than a conventional rig. A former Blue Origin lead engineer on the crew capsule and a self-described third-generation miner, Russell fires projectiles at hypersonic speed every few seconds to crack rock for geothermal energy, mining and tunneling, and to lob payloads toward space through his sister venture Pipeline2Space. He raised roughly $9.6 million from thousands of small investors and won early backing from NASA and Shell.