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HomeTechIcelandic scientist plan to drill all the way down to magma

Icelandic scientist plan to drill all the way down to magma

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Getty Images Lava spews from multiple craters of the Sundhnúkur volcano on June 3, 2024 on the Reykjanes peninsula near Grindavik, Iceland. Getty Photos

Iceland is without doubt one of the world’s most volcanically lively locations

I am in one of many world’s volcanic hotspots, northeast Iceland, close to the Krafla volcano.

A brief distance away I can see the rim of the volcano’s crater lake, whereas to the south steam vents and dust swimming pools bubble away.

Krafla has erupted round 30 occasions within the final 1,000 years, and most just lately within the mid-Eighties.

Bjorn Guðmundsson leads me to a grassy hillside. He’s operating a group of worldwide scientists who plan to drill into Krafla’s magma.

“We’re standing on the spot the place we’re going to drill,” he says.

The Krafla Magma Testbed (KMT) intends to advance the understanding of how magma, or molten rock, behaves underground.

That data might assist scientists forecast the chance of eruptions and push geothermal power to new frontiers, by tapping into an especially scorching and probably limitless supply of volcano energy.

Bjorn Por Guðmundsson speaks to Adrienne Murray with the rim of the Krafla volcano in the distance

Bjorn Por Guðmundsson leads a group planning to drill all the way down to magma underneath this spot

Beginning in 2027 the KMT group will start drilling the primary of two boreholes to create a novel underground magma observatory, round 2.1km (1.3 miles) underneath the bottom.

“It is like our moonshot. It is going to rework quite a lot of issues,” says Yan Lavallée, a professor of magmatic petrology and volcanology on the Ludwigs-Maximillian College in Munich, and who heads KMT’s science committee.

Volcanic exercise is normally monitored by instruments like seismometers. However in contrast to lava on the floor, we don’t know very a lot concerning the magma beneath floor, explains Prof Lavallée.

“We might prefer to instrument the magma so we will actually take heed to the heart beat of the earth,” he provides.

Strain and temperature sensors might be positioned into the molten rock. “These are the 2 key parameters we have to probe, to have the ability to inform forward of time what’s occurring to the magma,” he says.

All over the world an estimated 800 million folks reside inside 100km of hazardous lively volcanoes. The researchers hope their work might help save lives and cash.

Iceland has 33 lively volcano techniques, and sits on the rift the place the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates pull aside.

Most just lately, a wave of eight eruptions within the Reykanes peninsula has broken infrastructure and upended lives in the neighborhood of Grindavik.

Mr Guðmundsson additionally factors to Eyjafjallajökull, which brought on havoc in 2010 when an ash cloud brought on over 100,000 flight cancellations, costing £3bn ($3.95bn).

“If we’d been higher capable of predict that eruption, it might have saved some huge cash,” he says.

Steam rises from pools with snow-capped volcanos in the distance, in northeast in Iceland

Krafla is surrounded by steaming ponds and dust swimming pools

KMT’s second borehole will develop a test-bed for a brand new technology of geothermal energy stations, which exploit magma’s excessive temperature.

“Magma are extraordinarily energetic. They’re the warmth supply that energy the hydrothermal techniques that results in geothermal power. Why not go to the supply?” asks Prof Lavallée.

Some 25% of Iceland’s electrical energy and 85% of family heating, comes from geothermal sources, which faucet scorching fluids deep underground, making steam to drive generators and generate electrical energy.

Within the valley beneath, the Krafla energy plant provides scorching water and electrical energy to about 30,000 houses.

“The plan is to drill simply in need of the magma itself, probably poke it slightly bit,” says Bjarni Pálsson with a wry smile.

“The geothermal useful resource is positioned simply above the magma physique, and we consider that’s round 500-600C,” says Mr Pálsson, the manager director of geothermal growth at nationwide energy supplier, Landsvirkjun.

Magma may be very exhausting to find underground, however in 2009 Icelandic engineers made an opportunity discovery.

That they had deliberate to make a 4.5km deep borehole and extract extraordinarily scorching fluids, however the drill abruptly stopped because it intercepted surprisingly shallow magma.

“We had been completely not anticipating to hit magma at solely 2.1km depth,” says Mr Pálsson.

Encountering magma is uncommon and has solely occurred right here, Kenya and Hawaii.

Superheated steam measuring a recording-breaking 452°C shot up, whereas the chamber was an estimated 900°C.

Dramatic video exhibits billowing smoke and steam. Acute warmth and corrosion ultimately destroyed the nicely.

“This nicely produced about 10 occasions extra [energy] than the common nicely on this location,” says Mr Pálsson.

Simply two of those might provide the identical power as the ability plant’s 22 wells, he notes. “There may be an apparent sport changer.”

Steel pipes zig-zag across the Icelandic landscape connecting red pods of a geothermal power station

There’s a large demand for geothermal energy

Greater than 600 geothermal energy vegetation are discovered worldwide, and tons of extra are deliberate, amid rising demand for round the clock low carbon power. These wells are usually round 2.5km deep, and deal with temperatures beneath 350°C.

Non-public corporations and analysis groups in a number of nations are additionally working in direction of extra superior and ultra-deep geothermal, referred to as super-hot rock, the place temperatures exceed 400°C at depths of 5 to 15km.

Reaching deeper and far hotter, warmth reserves is the “Holy Grail”, says Rosalind Archer, the dean of Griffith College, and former director of the Geothermal Institute in New Zealand.

It’s the upper power density that’s so promising, she explains, as every borehole can produce 5 to 10 occasions extra energy than commonplace geothermal wells.

“You’ve got acquired New Zealand, Japan and Mexico all trying, however KMT is the closest one to getting drill bit within the floor,” she says. “It is not straightforward and it is not essentially low-cost to get began.”

Snow and ice covers the crater lake at Krafla volcano

Engineers should develop new drilling tech to work round volcanos

Drilling into this excessive setting might be technically difficult, and requires particular supplies.

Prof Lavallée is assured it’s potential. Excessive temperatures are additionally present in jet engines, metallurgy and the nuclear trade, he says.

“We now have to discover new supplies and extra corrosion resistant alloys,” says Sigrun Nanna Karlsdottir, a professor of business and mechanical engineering on the College of Iceland.

Inside a lab, her group of researchers are testing supplies to face up to excessive warmth, stress and corrosive gases. Geothermal wells are normally constructed with carbon metal, she explains, however that rapidly loses energy when temperatures exceed 200°C.

“We’re specializing in excessive grade nickel alloys and in addition titanium alloys,” she says.

Drilling into volcanic magma sounds probably dangerous, however Mr Guðmundsson thinks in any other case.

“We don’t consider that sticking a needle into an enormous magma chamber goes to create an explosive impact,” he asserts.

“This occurred in 2009, they usually came upon that they’d in all probability performed this earlier than with out even figuring out it. We consider it’s protected.”

Different dangers additionally have to be thought-about when drilling into the earth like poisonous gases and inflicting earthquakes, says Prof Archer. “However the geological setting in Iceland makes that impossible.”

The work will take years, however might deliver superior forecasting and supercharged volcano energy.

“I feel the entire geothermal world are watching the KMT challenge,” says Prof Archer. “It’s probably fairly transformative.”

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