[ISL] The Conversation on the latest geothermal energy project of Iceland
The National Post shared Pete Rowley's post at The Conversation looking at Iceland's latest geothermal energy project.
Iceland is about to tap into water as hot as lava. Several kilometres below ground, a drilling rig named Thor will soon penetrate the area around a magma chamber, where molten rock from the inner Earth heats up water that has seeped through the seafloor. This water - up to 1,000°C and saturated with corrosive chemicals - will eventually be piped up to the surface and its heat turned into usable energy.
It is a huge engineering challenge, and one which may usher in a new age of geothermal power production. Existing geothermal projects around the world need waters heated to less than 300°C, so why go to this extra effort and expense?
The answer is simple: water at the most extreme temperatures exists in a state described as “supercritical”, where it behaves as neither a true liquid, nor a true gas, and is capable of retaining a phenomenal amount of energy. Supercritical water can generate up to ten times more power than conventional geothermal sources.
Iceland is a nation built on about 130 volcanoes resting above a divergent plate boundary which brings a continuous supply of hot, fresh magma up from the mantle just a few kilometres below. Icelanders have capitalised on this, and now generate more than a quarter of their electricity through geothermal, accessing boiling temperature water within 2 km of the surface.
The Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP) was set up to find out what happens at depths below 4km in the Icelandic crust. In 2009, during their first drilling leg, they accidentally hit a magma pocket, and eventually stabilised the system to create the hottest steam ever produced in geothermal exploration: 450°C.
Iceland is about to tap into water as hot as lava. Several kilometres below ground, a drilling rig named Thor will soon penetrate the area around a magma chamber, where molten rock from the inner Earth heats up water that has seeped through the seafloor. This water - up to 1,000°C and saturated with corrosive chemicals - will eventually be piped up to the surface and its heat turned into usable energy.
It is a huge engineering challenge, and one which may usher in a new age of geothermal power production. Existing geothermal projects around the world need waters heated to less than 300°C, so why go to this extra effort and expense?
The answer is simple: water at the most extreme temperatures exists in a state described as “supercritical”, where it behaves as neither a true liquid, nor a true gas, and is capable of retaining a phenomenal amount of energy. Supercritical water can generate up to ten times more power than conventional geothermal sources.
Iceland is a nation built on about 130 volcanoes resting above a divergent plate boundary which brings a continuous supply of hot, fresh magma up from the mantle just a few kilometres below. Icelanders have capitalised on this, and now generate more than a quarter of their electricity through geothermal, accessing boiling temperature water within 2 km of the surface.
The Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP) was set up to find out what happens at depths below 4km in the Icelandic crust. In 2009, during their first drilling leg, they accidentally hit a magma pocket, and eventually stabilised the system to create the hottest steam ever produced in geothermal exploration: 450°C.