World's First Magma-Based Geothermal Energy System

Lucas123 writes: "The Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP) announced it broke through to the Mantle and created a superheated steam pipe capable of producing power at the nearby Krafla Power Plant in Northern Iceland. The system was operational for several months until a malfunctioning valve forced its closure. The IDDP, however, plans to either reopen its first magma-based geothermal bore hole (PDF) — IDDP-1 — or drill another one at Reykjanes. While the IDDP-1 is not the first bore hole to reach the planet's magma, it is the first time an operation has been able to harness the mantle's heat to produce a steam pipe that could power a plant."

Comments

Is no one else concerned?

[Gothmolly]

Have we learned nothing from science fiction?

Re:Is no one else concerned?

[bondsbw]

There's nothing a well-placed nuke won't fix?

Re:Is no one else concerned?

[pushing-robot]

Obligatory.

Re:Is no one else concerned?

[rossdee]

That if you go down far enough from Iceland, you will reach the Centre of the Earth?

Re:Is no one else concerned?

[ackthpt]

They'll bring up the Balrog! Noozzz!

Re:Is no one else concerned?

[Last_Available_Usern]

If gigantic seams that span the entire planet across the tectonic plates isn't enough to cause the planet to implode I doubt a few small holes will either.

Re:Is no one else concerned?

[Chris Mattern]

Actually, the first thing I thought of was this.

Re:Is no one else concerned?

[Rei]

Haha, actually it was accidental. When they broke through into a magma chamber, that wasn't the goal - they didn't realize they were that close, they were just trying to tap the hot rock near it. But after magma filled up the borehole a couple dozen meters, they decided to try to turn lemons into lemonade and produce steam... and it actually worked.

But yeah, I think a lot of people have a gross misunderstanding how drilling works. You're not creating some big open hole that magma can just shoot up. If you tried that, the hole would collapse before you got very deep at all. Your hole is full of "mud" that is at least as high pressure as the surrounding rock. The gas isn't going to suddenly come out of solution and trigger an eruption when you drill into magma, you're not reducing the pressure on it.

And I'm sure it's mentioned somewhere below, but whoever wrote this article is an idiot. The mantle isn't full of magma, it's solid. The crust is where magma is found They did not drill to the mantle, they drilled into a magma chamber.

The only thing I learned from the article was that they plan to try the same thing in Reykjanes. I fully expect people to freak out, given that's where three quarters of our population lives ;) Also, I didn't know the stats on the sort of power they were getting out of that well... 36MWe of 450C steam from a single geothermal well is bloody insane. Hopefully this will prove to be economical and thus an incentive to stop destroying all of our rivers one after the next for hydroelectric power. : Oh, and I'm not surprised to learn that Alcoa was helping. There's three aluminum smelters here, and even the smallest of them uses more power than all of the homes and businesses combined. They built the largest hydroelectric plant in Europe (in the middle of the formerly-largest-undeveloped-wilderness in Europe) just to power a single smelter.

I don't get it

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Can someone with a thermodynamics background please explain to me how we can extract energy from Japanese cartoons?

Re:I don't get it

[ceoyoyo]

With a match.

Re:I don't get it

[Iniamyen]

The title of your post is spot on here.

Re:I don't get it

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

I see that you're "aquisitionally challenged" yourself.

Re:sounds like poor engineering?

[fahrbot-bot]

Am I the only one thinking an entire plant should be more redundant and resilient than the failure of a single valve?

FYI: The Death Star design team has a vacancy.

Careful! Don't let the gravity out

[Anonymous Coward]

Careful! Don't let the gravity out. It might deflate and flbrrbrrrt away.

1.3 miles?

[tomhath]

Iceland's National Energy Authority has created the world's first magma-based geothermal energy system after drilling 1.3 miles (2,100 meters) through the Earth's crust.

Could they have actually reached the mantle that close to the surface? I would believe they tapped into a volcano, but mantle doesn't sound right. Crust there is something like 15 km??

Re:1.3 miles?

[chmod a x mojo]

Iceland is currently rifting, so it is technically possible. From reading the article this isn't what has happened though.
From what the article states they simply drilled to near the magma chamber of a volcano. I say "near" because in all likelihood that is what they did; If they had actually pierced the magma chamber there is an extremely high probability that it would trigger an eruption, especially after adding volatiles ( water for steam in this case ).

Except for the said rifting, where the island is literally being torn apart from plates diverging, Iceland typically has eruptions somewhere in the middle of the scale from effusive ( think Hawaii, lava just kind of oozes or sprays out without producing huge plumes of ash) and the more violent explosive ( think yellowstone / mount st Helens / the classic huge cloud of ash and lightening volcanos ). Volatiles such as dissolved CO2 and H2O play an enormous part in controlling how violent an eruption is, basically more volatiles = more boom, and adding water to a magma chamber is not going to turn out pretty... do a quick search for Krakatoa to find out what happens ( supposedly anyways, it's what data suggest anyways) when you breach a magma chamber and add volatiles.

Source: I'm starting my 3rd year undergrad as a Geologist, and plan to go to grad school focusing on Vulcanology....

Re:1.3 miles?

[Rei]

So you think cooling down the magma (boiling water) increases the likelihood of an eruption? Do you think water will go through the pipe with enough pressure to break the pipe and rupture the surrounding rock, when they're controlling how much water they send down the pipe in the first place? You think dissolved gasses will come out faster somehow when they're doing nothing to reduce the pressure on the magma?

There's no logical reason why such a borehole should trigger an eruption. It should overall decrease the risk by taking heat out of it, making the magma more viscous if not outright solidifying it.

Re:sounds like poor engineering?

[CohibaVancouver]

The Death Star design team has a vacancy.

Look, the target area is only *two meters* wide. It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. Only a *precise* hit will start a chain reaction which would destroy the station. Plus, the shaft is ray-shielded, so they'll have to use proton torpedoes.

That's impossible, even for a computer.

Mantle or Magma Chamber?

[Capt.Albatross]

The IDDP's own reports on this project do not describe it as having reached the mantle. Other reports described it as having reached a magma chamber within the upper crust.

Re:sounds like poor engineering?

[fahrbot-bot]

The Death Star design team has a vacancy.

Look, the target area is only *two meters* wide. It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. Only a *precise* hit will start a chain reaction which would destroy the station. Plus, the shaft is ray-shielded, so they'll have to use proton torpedoes.

That's impossible, even for a computer.

Re-reading that dialog... Most of it sounds a little dirty.

Re:sounds like poor engineering?

[amicusNYCL]

The plant didn't shut down. The plant is still operating with 30 or something other wells drilled. The new pipe itself was shut down, because of a failure in one of the valves in the pipe. The pipe was never connected to the plant. It seems entirely possible that a linear structure like a pipe can be shut down by a failure of a single valve. It's not like they can route around the failed valve. They're investigating ways to re-open the sealed pipe in addition to drilling others.

Re:sounds like poor engineering?

[Hadlock]

Probably using the same Halliburton designed-and-tested valve technology as "too big to fail" deep water horizon.

Re:sounds like poor engineering?

[hamburger lady]

C-3PO: My God, you shoot small animals for fun? That's the first indicator of a serial killer, you freak!
Luke: There's two suns and no women! What the hell am I supposed to do?!

Re: Project Vulcan

[bob_super]

The crust under Iceland is really thin, it's a divergent continental plate boundary.

Re:How to make your very own Mars.

[cpt kangarooski]

If you can crack it apart, then you can just bury the graphite in the empty coal mines and oil wells, if there's no better use for it.

But this is so energy intensive that's it's not likely to happen anytime soon.

As for a limnic eruption, that just gets CO2 out of solution from water. It doesn't get it off the planet. Earth's gravity is too strong for that.

No need to read tech news, just read Judge Dredd

[cptnapalm]

Between magma powered energy, government spy drones, the obesity problem with the corresponding fat acceptance demands and the militarization of the police, everything I learned about the future, I learned from reading Judge Dredd comics.

More like, more Lagoon

[SuperKendall]

Since the Blue Lagoon is runoff from the existing steam power facility, more drilling means MORE Blue Lagoon, or something else like it...

And for the people freaking out from the Science Fiction angle of drilling to where man has not been before, you will probably not be happy that people at the Blue Lagoon are every day smearing mud on their faces imbued with minerals and micro-organisms from the magmic deep.

Besides, destruction of the Blue Lagoon would not deter tourists - we would still come for the tasty lamb and excellent hot dogs (oh, and the majestic scenery I guess).

Re:sounds like poor engineering?

[dead_user]

You kidding me? Star Wars was nasty!

Get in there you big furry oaf, I don't care what you smell!
Luke, at that speed do you think you'll be able to pull out in time?
Put that thing away before you get us all killed.
You've got something jammed in here real good.
Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?
You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought.
Sorry about the mess...
Look at the size of that thing!
Curse my metal body, I wasnt fast enough!
She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid.
I thought that hairy beast would be the end of me.
Size matters not. Judge me by my size, do you?
There's an awful lot of moisture in here.
Thats okay, I'd like to keep it on manual control for a while.
Hurry up, golden-rod...
I must've hit it pretty close to the mark to get her all riled up like that, huh kid?
It's possible he came in through the south entrance.
And I thought they smelled bad on the outside!
Control, control! You must learn control!
Hey, point that thing someplace else.
I look forward to completing your training. In time you will call me master.
I never knew I had it in me.
There is good in him, I've felt it.
Hey, Luke, thanks for coming after me -- now I owe you one.
Back door, huh? Good idea!
She's gonna blow!
I think youll fit in nicely.
Rise, my friend.
I'm sure he wasn't on that thing when it blew...
Wedge! Pull out! Youre not doing any good back there!