Carlos Araque
Co-Founder and CEO, Quaise Energy. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveengineerLinkedIn ↗quaise.energy ↗
After spending 15 years in oilfield technology at Schlumberger and serving as Technical Director at MIT's venture fund The Engine, Araque co-founded Quaise Energy in 2018. At Quaise, he leads the commercial development of millimeter-wave gyrotron drilling technology to reach deep superhot geothermal energy 10 to 20 kilometers beneath the earth.
2shows
2appearances
35statements
14resolved
8supported
3contradicted
57%fully supported
1said about them ↓ Everything Carlos Araque said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Solar and wind alone would match CO2's ecological harm, says Araque
“I think it would, but the ecological consequences would be just as bad as putting CO₂ into the atmosphere.”
Araque: Only fission, fusion, and deep geothermal can scale to humanity's needs
“So when you look at that, I think there's only three things that can do it. The first one is indeed nuclear fission. As you just mentioned, it has the scalability and the power density to do it. The second one is fusion, which is what the sun does, but it's st…”
Araque: Super-hot geothermal will achieve $50 to $100 per MWh globally
“The higher outputs will be a big part of bringing those LCOEs down, and we see a hundred dollars per megawatt hour at the meter, no matter where you are in the world. Now, that includes the shallow and the deep systems. If you look specifically at the shallow …”
Araque: Quaise will achieve 25-30 MW EGS flow test by end of 2026
“For us in particular, the project in Oregon gets that flow test by the end of this year. By the end of twenty-twenty-six, Quaze has a commercial-grade Injector producer per EGS system producing 25 to 30 megawatt equivalent electric output from a flow test.”
Araque: Quaise will run first supercritical geothermal flow test by 2028
“From there in twenty-twenty-eight, so two years later, we'll do another version of that, that is not at three miles, but a little bit deeper and above the 400 degrees Celsius or so. We're basically walking up the temperatures of that site to unlock those outpu…”
Araque: Quaise Can Reach 20-Kilometer Depths to Unlock Global Geothermal
“So we think we can get to 20 kilometers. This is twice as deep as we've ever drilled as humans, and precisely what's needed to make geothermal totally global and ubiquitous.”
Araque: Gyrotron millimeter waves can vaporize any subterranean basement rock
“Anything that's down there in the basement rock
Can be vaporized through this.
if you try to vaporize a metallic wall, it's not going to work, but there's no metallic walls down there.
So, so rock vaporizes.”
Araque: Millimeter-wave drilling creates vitrified glass walls that stabilize deep boreholes
“So when you're drilling the energy, you use temperature to stabilize the hole, and it basically keeps itself open.
It creates a glass wall that's very, very, very strong.
We've seen this in the lab.”
Araque: Existing power plants can be repowered with geothermal in weeks
“Yeah, I mean, the power plant's already built, and all we have to do is to feed it the steam that's carbon free. And you can do each one in weeks. That's precisely the play we're after.”
Twelve 8-inch deep geothermal wells could power all of San Francisco
“They're only eight inches in diameter, so absolutely you can. Yeah, I don't think you can do it with anything else, but you're right. It's 12 wells for that amount of energy to run San Francisco.”
Araque: Geothermal could supply 20% of global energy by 2050
“So let's say by 20 50 we have on the order of one to five terawatts, that's probably a healthy 20% of global energy needs, but certainly after that, you know, you start talking about the majority of energy coming from here.”
Araque: Drilling super-hot geothermal is a vastly larger hurdle than fracturing
“The drilling by far outweighs the fracturing. The fracturing does happen in nature. We see this in nature every time a hydrothermal vent or a mine forms. This is the process by which it does so. So there's evidence in the geological record that The fracture in…”
Araque: Quaise is securing a take-or-pay PPA for its first project
“So we're already getting into market. In that location with a real take or pay PPA because we know that we can point to all of the solutions with precedent.”
Energy transition is blocked by technology, not politics, says Araque
“So I became convinced that the reason we don't transition energy is first and foremost because we do not have as a species that technology to do it. Politics play a role, but it is really a technological gap first and foremost.”
Araque: Drilling at most 20 kilometers unlocks global geothermal energy
“Well, if you want to cover the entire planet, if you want to make sure every single human being has access to geothermal energy, not just a little bit of it, not just a little bit to bathe in hot water, but also to power every single appliance and every single…”
Quaise will start field drilling in 2024, repower plant by 2028
“So, twenty-twenty-four is what we say we're going to do, and after that, you start the journey towards repairing a power plant, and that takes us the better part of the rest of the decade. So, twenty-twenty-seven, 28 is when we intend to repair the first power…”
Araque: Oil and gas drilling is limited by temperature, not depth
“Oil and gas systems are not depth limited. They are temperature limited. You will find people drilling with mechanical drilling systems all the way down to eight miles, nine miles, pushing really out there, but not hot, right? So the gap is not depth. The gap …”
Araque: Existing geothermal regions reach 800°F closer to 3 miles deep
“Everywhere where you have geothermal today is very likely one of those places where you'll find the 800 degrees Fahrenheit at three miles, closer to three miles than closer to 12 miles.”
Araque: Shallow super-hot geothermal requires only incremental oil-and-gas hardware evolution
“So talking about the shallow ones, it's incremental improvements. There's a lot of precedence already in oil and gas. There's something in oil and gas called SAGD, steam-assisted gravity drainage, which injects steams, steam at temperatures up to 600 degrees F…”
Araque: Over 50 super-hot geothermal wells have been drilled worldwide
“And just like that location, I can point to more than 50 wells drilling the world by people looking for super hot hydrothermal systems that are going to be in the three to four mile range and are going to be in the 600 to 800 degrees Fahrenheit. Some of them a…”
Araque: Non-productive downtime matters far more than instantaneous drilling speed
“A lot of people overemphasize instantaneous speed, like, oh, we can drill a hundred meters per hour instantaneously, but that matters less than your consistency. So non-productive time in drilling is what starts to take over your drilling economics. You start …”
Araque: The Global Energy Transition Will Happen in Our Generation
“You know, the energy transition will happen in our generation. It has to happen”
The other half of the tape: Carlos Araque's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
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Catalyst 1
2024 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Carlos's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Co-Founder and CEO, Quaise Energy | 1 | 21 | 63% 5/8 | full record on How I Built This → |
| CATALYSTLEDGER | Co-Founder and CEO, Quaise Energy | 1 | 14 | 50% 3/6 | full record on Catalyst → |