Iceland To Drill Hole Into Volcano

G3ckoG33k writes "BBC reports that Iceland will drill a hole into a volcano so it can tap heat from it, which eventually is hoped to produce commercially available energy. From the article: "Twenty years ago, geologist Gudmundur Omar Friedleifsson had a surprise when he lowered a thermometer down a borehole. 'We melted the thermometer,' he recalls. 'It was set for 380C; but it just melted.'". Excuse me, Gudmundur, but how could that ever have been a 'surprise'..."

Comments

Warn Iceland!

[eldavojohn]

Don't they realize that Volcanic Energy has directly caused more deaths than Nuclear Energy?

When will people learn that there is no safe form of energy?!

The volcano gods are gonna be so angered when they find out Iceland is mooching the heat. If I know my mythology, nothing (and I mean nothing) pisses a god off like free stuff for humans. We should just rename Iceland to New Pompeii right now.

Re:Warn Iceland!

[fatduck]

Wait till some genius pitches his idea to the board of directors that they could get so much more energy from the volcano if they induced an eruption!

Re:Warn Iceland!

[eldavojohn]

Setting: Two men in suits with charts stand before an Icelandic government committee.

Pitch Guy 1: "Boy it sure is cold out today! Now, I know this sounds a little far out there, but we've been studying the volcano over there and we predict that it has energy equivalent to 20 million tons of TNT. Now that energy is, by our god given right, ours. It's just as valuable as the oil underneath the Middle East. So, we induce an eruption."

Pitch Guy 2: "It's that simple. But John, won't the people be mad that the government is getting all this free energy?"

Pitch Guy 1: "No, no, here's the best part. That energy will be distributed ... equally."

Pitch Guy 2: "Gentlemen, I think the real question here today is, 'How can we afford not to induce an eruption?'"

Re:Warn Iceland!

[maximthemagnificent]

Of course, so has fossil fuel energy.

Re:Warn Iceland!

[thrillseeker]

The movie was called The Core. And it was an absolute piece of shit.

I wouldn't give it that many stars.

Re:Warn Iceland!

[rpjs]

The volcano gods are gonna be so angered when they find out Iceland is mooching the heat

Having visited Iceland, I'd be willing to bet that the Icelanders have already talked it over with the volcano gods and cut them in for a share of the profits. This is, after all, a country that builds roads around boulders because the elves live in them.

Re:Warn Iceland!

[Anonymous Custard]

This is, after all, a country that builds roads around boulders because the elves live in them.

And I suppose you could think of a better reason to build roads around boulders?

Re:Warn Iceland!

[zrk]

I don't think that's the one. There was a film from 1965 called Crack in the World. It started by them drilling down by a volcano and dropping in the nuke. The crack eventually worked its way around the Earth, which then ejected the portion that cracked into space, done as well as a 1960's movie could do, which is to say Not. The Core was the one with Hilary Swank and Aaron Eckhart that was almost as bad, but it did have more of a camp value.

Re:Warn Iceland!

[Code Herder]

No, you definitly are not an expert.

Deep Thought by Jack Handy

[The Snowman]

If you ever drop your car keys in lava, forget it man, they're gone.

Re:Deep Thought by Jack Handy

[KiloByte]

Worse, I've even heard a story of a guy who had his ring dropped in lava, HE was gone!

Doctor Who

[lisaparratt]

Do they not watch Doctor Who in Iceland?

It'll be green skinned monsters and parallel universes before you know it!

Re:Doctor Who

[Trestran]

And for those of you wondering exactly what the hell he is talking about: Inferno, a Doctor Who story, in the first season of the third Doctor. It's pretty decent Who story, where a similar experiment ends up blowing up the world (they drill completely through to the crust though). Which the Doctor witnesses in a parralel universe, so he can warn his own universe of the dangers of the experiment. Throw some weird green hairy zombies in, to make sure you do not forget it is Doctor Who. :P

After watching Doctor Who for the first time with the new series last year, I've actually started going through all the old Doctor Who stories I never saw in chronological order, and boy is there a lot of (26 seasons, to be precise). And I just happened to have watch Inferno yesterday, so it is fresh on my mind, and was actually the first thing I thought of when I saw this newsbit also. :)

Geothermal power is really important

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I took a field trip once to the local hydroelectric dam and learned all about how hydro is safe and clean and provides a large recreational grounds after the water has accumulated behind the dam. It was pretty cool.

Now if they can build a geothermal plant that actually improves the landscape, I think they are on to something. Free energy ceases to be free when you ruin the surrounding area with ugly power plants.

Re:Geothermal power is really important

[Overzeetop]

Yeah, pretty cool until you find out that there are environmental consequnces to dramatically altering a river basin. Not that the drawbacks always outweigh the benefits, but it's not exactly the "free energy and waterskiing nirvana" that the tour promoters would like you to see. Remember - it's in their financial interest to build hydroelectric plants, there's a conflict of interest.

Oh, and if anyone wants to decide to build a dam near me, just make sure that you give me the heads up so that I can buy a few thousand acres of future waterfront before the prices go way up. (Hey, for the kind of money we're talking, I'll play the game, too!)

Re:Geothermal power is really important

[gcranston]

There's a host of problems with hydroelectric that rarely get talked about. Damming the river slows the water, reducing the size of sediment it can transport. This causes all the sediment from upstream to settle out at the inlet to the dam resevoir, raising the bed level drastically. Changes in the river like this are detrimental to fish and plats in the river, and have also grounded many boats. This is why very few hydroelectric dams have been built in North America and Europe in the past few decades. For these and a host of ethical reasons (like displacing a couple MILLION people), the Three Gorges Dam should never have been built in China.

I'm not aware of any of these kinds of issues with geothermal (I really do support the idea), but then I don't know that much about the technology. Just pointing out that hydroelectric is far from 'free' when you build dams to do it. The thing is not everyone has something the size of Niagara Falls to generate power from. (Even then , Niagara does not acount for very much of Ontario's total power generation.)

Re:Geothermal power is really important

[arivanov]

I would second that.

Just look at Russia, it has the largest hydro deployment in the world now and the results are not pretty. River deltas are drying, there are massive changes to the environment, climate which was as healthy as a climate can get 100 years ago has become practically lethal in many places. A big hydroelectric tends to keep the river right after it open all winter. As a result the humidity goes into the 100% condensing range which when the outside temperature is around -40 is outright deadly. It is not pretty when the outside temperature is above 25 either.

There are very few places in the world where a hydroelectric is environmentally safe and economically sound.

Re:Geothermal power is really important

[Dan Ost]

Humidity raises the specific heat of the air, effectively making it a better heat conductor. 30 degrees with 60% humidity is far more dangerous than 0 degrees with 20% humidity. Combine high humidity with wind chill and things get downright lethal very quickly.

I grew up in North Dakota and have fond memories of scraping ice off my windshield while wearing boxers at below zero (with no wind or humidity). I would never consider doing that here in Tennessee 'cuz 29 degrees with 60% humidity is COLD!

Re:Geothermal power is really important

[ottffssent]

Yeah, Three Gorges has its (major) problems. But to say it should never have been built is a luxury you have because of living in a country fairly well-provisioned for its future energy needs. As these things go.

China's projecting enormous increased demand, and there's no good way to get the energy.

They can bet on coal, which China actually has quite a lot of (though not so much on a per-capita basis), but it's something of an environmental disaster even if it's burned cleanly.
They can bet on nuclear, which presents waste storage problems and relies on finite supplies of fissionable material.
They can bet on wind (not sure of the viability of that, but I'm sure at least SOMEWHERE in China there's good wind), but it takes up a lot of area and apparently isn't so good for birds.
They can bet on solar, which is even worse in terms of taking up space, and is expensive, and only works for half the day.
They can bet on hydroelectric, which displaces people, permanently changes the river, and nukes a whole lot of land. And that enormous lake is going to affect the weather.

There are other options too, of course. And the best solution is a mix of many different technologies. Etc. But the fact is that there's no good solution. China bit the bullet and picked what they hope is the least-bad choice. It had to be done.

Re:Geothermal power is really important

[the argonaut]

Mostly BS. The reasons no new hydro plants have been built:

(1) Most of the good damn (misspelling intentional) sites have already been taken.

(2) The environmental costs. Sorry to have to break this to ya, but this is a huge part of the equation. In the last decade there have been a not insignificant number of damns, mostly smaller ones, that have been removed for environmental reasons.

(3) The economics of damns simply do not work. Especially as the size of the damn increases, no private entity can build and operate a significant damn at a profit. They're money losing ventures.

Re:Geothermal power is really important

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

tell this to the thousands of brasilian farmers who were displaced by huge hydroelectric projects during the military government between '64-'85 who hadn't been setled in new plots to this day, tell this to other thousands who leave nerby the lakes who have to deal with clouds of mosquitos that reproduce in the shores and can cover the sun when then fly seeking for blood to feed their eggs, tell this to people who live downstream the dams and see the rivers that suply them reduced to little more than creeks in times of drought...

i've seen all of these here in brasil, where 90% of the electricity comes from hydroelectrics.

hydropower also has it's environmental price tag, don't let the marketing departament of a utility fool you.

Re:Geothermal power is really important

[JDevers]

Not to be pedantic (because you are basically right), but if you are scraping ice off of a windshield then the dew point would have been pretty close to the ambient temp at some point (meaning the relative humidity was high). In a 20% RH environment, there will not be any condensation unless the surface where the ice forms is MUCH cooler than ambient.

So if you said, when I lived in ND and went out to get the mail in my boxers and didn't get cold because of 15% RH versus freezing my sack off in pants doing the same in Tennessee in 80-100% RH (early morning likely except in really dry times) even though it was far colder in ND, then you would be right. But then you have to figure that it is generally far windier in ND than TN, except for some of the mountainous areas, but that is an entirely different discussion.

Ironically, most people realize this, but only in the form of "hot air" without thinking about the ramifications of humidity at cold temps. Most people know that sticking your hand into a 350F oven doesn't really hurt for quite some time (assuming you don't touch something inside...), but touching a 212F column of steam will hurt quite quickly. Or that 95F in Orlando feels a hell of a lot hotter than 110F in Phoenix.

Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head

[fatduck]

In other news, Icelandic scientists have set up a network of precisely timed explosive devices in a tunnel into the heart of the volcano in order to harvest billions of dollars worth of "blue diamonds" extremely useful for use in electronics.

Surprise

[Tibor the Hun]

It was a surprise because his hypothesis was that they would find thetans living there.

Re:Surprise

[Bueller_007]

I assume you got your information from a recent South Park episode.

FYI, nobody was lowered into a volcano. Nuclear bombs were placed into the volcanoes, 75 million people were placed around the edges of the volcanoes,
and the bombs were subsequently detonated.

The rest of the story is "correct". The disembodied souls (called thetans) were then sucked up into vacuums and forced into cinemas to watch brain-watching movies.

So there you go. I guess you could say that my version of the fake truth is more true than your version of the fake truth.

Apologies to Futurama...

[mcsestretch]

Here's a transcript from the experiment:

Leela: OW! Fire hot!

Farnsworth: The professy will help. AAAH! Fire indeed hot.

Lesson Learned

[Scarletdown]

"Twenty years ago, geologist Gudmundur Omar Friedleifsson had a surprise when he lowered a thermometer down a borehole. 'We melted the thermometer,' he recalls. 'It was set for 380C; but it just melted.'"

He should have known better than to try to take a volcano god's temperature rectally.

Dr. Evil

[xx_toran_xx]

Oh, yes, they /say/ that it's for an energy source.

I have a feeling they just want to create an evil lair.

Umm volcanic eduptions anyone?

[fernandoh26]

Ok so how long before the volcano erupts and utterly destroys a multi million dollar power plant built on its side with earthquake action/lava flow/pyroclastic flow? Even if this were an inactive volcano, those things can randomly become active, spelling doom for the poor saps who would be staffing the power plant (not to mention the millions of dollars down the drain when your spiffy new power plant goes up in smoke, literally). This is your power plant *shows picture of power plant* This is your power plant on a volcano *shows picture of puff of smoke* Questions?

Re:Umm volcanic eduptions anyone?

[milosoftware]

This is your power plant on a safe distance of a volcano *shows picture of obviously long ago abandoned plant* Questions?

Simple math.

People build a plant there because multiplying the chance of total disaster with the cost of such disaster comes out much smaller than the expected revenue.

Shocking discovery!

[10Ghz]

Nation to drill a hole in a volcano. Lava discovered. News at eleven!

Rock is a good insulator

[gregor-e]

Trouble with extracting geothermal energy is that rock is a pretty good insulator. Once you get the first enthusiastic bout of steam and have cooled a few feet of rock around your pipe, the heat leaches back in very slowly. Unless they can create and sustain a lava tube that is constantly eroding in the presence of circulating magma, (or use a heat exchanger in constantly circulating hot water), this is unlikely to be successful.

Re:Rock is a good insulator

[Nafets]

You seem to assume that the rock down there is dry. The fact of the matter is that the rock has lots and lots of fractures and tiny tunnels through which water flows. The water, or steam, flows to the surface and there the energy is extracted from it. Like the article says they have already gone down to 3,082m and are now conducting flow tests, which means they are seeing how much water is coming up the hole. Of course there is the possibility that the waterflow is below a certain threshold which would render the hole economically unviable, but there is certainly no magma being moved or circulated anywhere either. More information about IDDP : http://jardhitafelag.is.nyud.net:8080/papers/PDF_S ession_06/S06Paper122.pdf

Re:Rock is a good insulator

[Logi]

Trouble with extracting geothermal energy is that rock is a pretty good insulator. Once you get the first enthusiastic bout of steam and have cooled a few feet of rock around your pipe, the heat leaches back in very slowly

Obviously, that's not how it will be done. In the currently operating hydroelectric plants in Iceland, such as at Svartsengi, they constantly pump water into fissures in the ancient lava flow (5000 to 8000 year old around Reykjavik if I remember my high-school geology) to be extracted as steam. The steam is used to drive turbines for electricity and for heat-exchange to heat fresh water (it is quite salty/gritty/full of sulphur at this point) which then is fed to near-by settlements for heating.

Icelandic apartments will have cold water, hot water and electricity coming to them, all dirt cheap. No gas.

Finally, the water is dumped into a large lake of industrial waste^W^Wbeautiful blue water and that's where we^H^Hthey hoard the tourists.

Finally, for some extra geek, we have a description of the computer systems at Svartsengi powerplant.

Water wet

[smoor]

In other news, scientists in New Zealand were surprised to discover that a moisture probe the had developed capable of measuring humidity from 0-90% malfunctioned after being lowered into a mysterious salty substance found at the edge of the island.

Due to the malfunctioning instrument, scientists are still unsure about what this salty liquid mixture could be.

Lead scientist Dr. Tom Hanks

[Rob T Firefly]

volunteered to lead the team for personal reasons.

"Surprise" easy to explain...

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay. Everybody's joking about it, but here's the solution to the puzzle of the "surprising" heat: that's 380+ Celcius *WATER*, not lava. The area being studied is on the sea floor or kilometres beneath the land surface, and the water is under great pressure. As a result, it gets much hotter than surface water, without boiling. Sometimes the "water" in the sea floor close to these volcanic areas is a supercritical fluid -- beyond the temperature-pressure conditions for distinct gaseous and liquid phases.

Supercritical water is pretty exotic stuff in power systems. There are some advanced fossil-fuel power stations that use it, and supercritical nuclear power systems are being developed. They offer higher thermal efficiencies. In Iceland, they might be able to get the same thing going, but with renewable geothermal sources, which would be great, but first they have to tame some pretty extreme conditions in the boreholes.

Re:"Surprise" easy to explain...

[Antifuse]

The term "supercritical nuclear power" scares me.

Re:"Surprise" easy to explain...

[tacokill]

Yep. Parent is dead on. Just for reference:

@ atmospheric pressure (14.7psig), water boils at 212F
@ 700psig, water boils at 503F
@ 3000psig, water boils at 695F
and above, 3208psig, you can add as much heat as you want and water won't boil. It's called the critical pressure.


And its the very reason there are so many "steam" accidents at power plants. You hear liquid going through the lines but you don't realize that liquid is under pressure. And once you release the pressure, the liquid instantly flashes and boils off --- creating a HUGE increase in volume. And a very dangerous environment.

Why yes, IAARVS (I am a relief valve salesman)

RTFA

[Hakubi_Washu]

The summary is bullshit, even by /. standards. They were drilling for conventional geothermal energy, that is water heated by a lava flow nearby (extremely common in Iceland). Given the high pressure they were expecting high temperatures (the quoted 380) and still liquid water (due to the pressure). What was surprising is the fact that the water was probably more than 500 and actually melted the thermometer. Given this discovery (aka The water in this depth is much hotter than previously calculated) it makes perfect sense to a) explore the reasons for the higher temperature and b) use that for a more efficient power plant. There's no volcanoes involved at all.

Yellowstone park

[WindBourne]

Hopefully, if this works, we will start more taps in wyoming/montana around Yellowstone park. I realize that some will worry that we would tap too much heat out, but if we work from the outside, it is doubtful that we could change Old Faithful. It is time that we take advantage of none destuctive alternatives such as this (as well as nukes).

Re:Yellowstone park

[Bob3141592]

Hopefully, if this works, we will start more taps in wyoming/montana around Yellowstone park. I realize that some will worry that we would tap too much heat out, but if we work from the outside, it is doubtful that we could change Old Faithful. It is time that we take advantage of none destuctive alternatives such as this (as well as nukes).

It is a good idea, and of less concern than you think. Geothermal energy should be exploited more, but it's uncommon to find a good natural source with a configuration that makes it economically feasible to exploit.

However, your comment about geysers is incorrect. Geysers form under very peculiar circumstances, needing long vertical shafts with interveening chambers of a certain geometry. Under more common conditions you only get hot springs or boiling mud pots. Geysers are spectacular and rare for a reason. Also, Old Faithful hasn't been since an earthquake in 1998. Faithful, that is. It used to go off like regular clockwork, but now it's much more sporatic. In general, geysers often simply stop erupting, most commonly because mineral deposits change their geometry or choke off their vents. Earthquakes, ubiquitous in regions with geysers, are another major factor. Fascinating objects, really, and worth a closer look.

Re:Yellowstone park

[Eccles]

Given that Yellowstone is a potential supervolcano, one wonders if tapping the energy there would reduce or increase the chances of it becoming one. It might work as a safety valve, or might trigger changes that accelerate the process -- or might just be like a match in an already raging forest fire.

Names!

[slavemowgli]

Feel free to mod this off-topic, but... can't we *please* try to get the names right? The man's called Guðmundur Ómar Friðleifsson, not Gudmundur Omar Friedleifsson. (I've written about this before, too.)

Yeah, I know, the summary's just copied from the BBC article, and the BBC makes the same mistake (and even calls him "Friedleifsson" instead of "Fridleifsson"), but shouldn't Slashdot try to maintain a higher standard of quality than the BBC? ...OK, I give up, I can't say that last line without laughing. But jokes aside, it still would be nice if the editors actually took the 30 seconds it takes to, y'know, *edit* a story.

kill two birds with one stone?

[Phoenix666]

cool to think that you can tap volcanos for energy. question is, if you're drawing off that energy, might you not also be reducing the likelihood of a catastrophic eruption? i am a simple caveman lawyer who does not understand your modern ways, but that would be pretty neat.

Scientist != Engineers

[sacherjj]

At depth, the groundwater is way over 100C, but the pressure keeps it liquid. As Dr Friedleifsson puts it: "On the surface, you boil your egg at 100 degrees; but if you wanted to boil your egg at a depth of 2,500m, it would take 350."

Sorry, but I HATE stupid analogies that only help make stupid people reading them, dumber. It would take 350C for the water to boil, but non-boiling 100C water will "boil" and egg just fine. It is a good thing that 340C water isn't hot enough to burn you down there, because it isn't "boiling". Sheesh....

Lets see, pressure of water to boil at 350C is around 1100 psi (guess from extending this chart). So the question is, can an egg in a shell withstand 1100 psi to even be boiled?

Re:High Temp Drills

[x2A]

"but I'm not impressed that they were suprised by the thermometer melting"

It was in liquid water at the time, which changes things somewhat. Also, whilst drilling into the "volcano", they're only drilling into rock, not into the magma, so the danger isn't what you imagine.

I'm sure his wife was PISSED!

[spineboy]

I can imagine the poor guy trying to explain that to his wife.
"Yeah Honey, I was just standing there, and some weird shriveled old bald guy bit it off my hand, and then he fell into a lava pit......I know it sounds weird. Why was I by the lava pit anyway?.....No, there were no women around there......Well yeah I had been drinking and eating some Elven bread and liquor...The broach?....That was just a present... Well she's the Elf Queen.....Well no, She's not married.....Yes, she gave me the cloak too.... What do you mean I have to sleep outside tonight?"

Melted thermometer

[scottv67]

'It was set for 380C; but it just melted.'

I guess he should have bought the thermometer that goes to '11'..... ;^)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088258/

Not very exciting, is it

[BraksDad]

I always suspected that Icelanders were boring. Surely it is possible to find a place between the surface and the magma where the temperature is consistantly around the temperature we use in other power plants. We could just pipe water from that depth up to a conventional Steam Generator and create steam in the second loop. This would not require exotic materials or open us up to triggering a volcanic eruption. Beyond this guy being surprised by the water temperature, I don't see anything here that is exotic or unusual. Honestly I am still amazed that we don't use more thermal energy to power the grid... Germany could buy their electricity from Iceland instead of the French who produce it with Nuclear plants across the Rhine from them since they don't want any nukes IN Germany.