Quaise is hoping to accomplish those lofty goals by tapping into the energy source below our feet. The company plans to vaporize enough rock to create the world's deepest holes and harvest geothermal energy at a scale that could satisfy human energy consumption for millions of years. They haven't yet solved all the related engineering challenges, but Quaise's founders have set an ambitious timeline to begin harvesting energy from a pilot well by 2026. The plan would be easier to dismiss as unrealistic if it were based on a new and unproven technology. But Quaise's drilling systems center around a microwave-emitting device called a gyrotron that has been used in research and manufacturing for decades.