Quaise Energy secures $180 million to pioneer 5-km super-hot geothermal plant
Quaise Energy closed a $180 million Series B round, including $35 million from Nabors Industries, to fund its Oregon-based Obsidian Project that will use microwave gyrotrons to drill beyond 5 km and create the world’s first super-hot geothermal plant.
Quaise Energy announced the final closing of a $180 million Series B financing, adding $35 million from oil-field giant Nabors Industries to its earlier $134 million tranche led by Prelude Ventures and backed by JERA and Idemitsu Kosan. The capital will underwrite the Obsidian Project in Oregon, where a microwave gyrotron will create wells up to 5 km deep, heating rock to 300 °C-500 °C and vaporising it without a mechanical bit.
Nabors will contribute a dedicated land rig and integrate its drilling-strategy software, merging conventional shallow drilling with the contact-less method for the hotter basement rock. The chosen lease lies south of the Newberry volcano in the Deschutes National Forest, offering a geothermal gradient of roughly 100 °C per kilometre, enabling super-critical temperatures at shallower depths than elsewhere. Quaise’s earlier Texas test drilled over 100 m of granite and is now approaching one kilometre, marking the deepest contact-less drilling to date. Phase I targets 50 MW of electricity on the grid by 2030, with Phase II expanding to 250 MW and long-term ambitions of gigawatt-scale output.
Why it matters
The financing could unlock a new, ultra-efficient clean-energy source by making super-hot geothermal power commercially viable.
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