Iceland Seeking 'Supercritical Steam' For Power Source (bbc.com)

New submitter FatdogHaiku writes: Already getting over 25% of its electrical power from geothermal sources, Iceland hopes to break new ground using "supercritical steam" from a 5 km deep borehole. Is it just me, or does this sound like the start of a movie where everything that can go wrong does in fact go wrong? It's not like they are new to the tech, but working with geologic sources at 450C to ~600C is a new ball game for anyone. It should be noted that Iceland also uses direct geothermal for most of its space heating. "In this area at Reykjanes, we typically drill to 2km or 3km depth to harness the steam, to run power plants and produce clean, renewable electricity," explained Asgeir Margeirsson, CEO of the Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP). "We want to see if the resources go deeper than that." The "supercritical steam" holds more energy than a liquid or a gas. The team wants to bring it up to the surface to convert into electricity, as they believe it could produce up to 10 times as much energy as the steam from conventional geothermal wells.

Comments

Re:Is it just me?

[Ol Olsoc]

Precisely. Engineering has been handling stuff that puny meat-sacks find terrifying since forever. Have you any idea how unutterably mindbogglingly insane the inside of the jet engine that takes you on holiday is? School perhaps should be teaching the science of exotic man-made technology rather than avoiding goto loops

I've found that the level of ignorance of engineering technology is completely astounding. Even the basic premise of this story is silly. Who knew that we have worked with supercritical steam for years, and it's not a BFD?

The benefits are many, and use of supercritical steam has it all over saturated steam. While everyone is aghast over the temperatures, I'm pretty certain that all of the equipment will actually last longer in addidion to generating more power. Only in modern America is technology so evil that a story of an obvious engineering step is somehow going to doom the earth.

But I guess that's what happens when we get our science education from Kim Kardashian and Politicians.

Re:'Muricans are too stupid to do this.

[Immerman]

And if the Earth were a ball of compressed gasses held together by an airtight skin, that would be a valid worry.

Fortunately the Earth is actually a ball of liquid and semi-liquid rock held together by its own gravity, with an incredibly thin and broken crust floating on the outer surface. Absolute worst case scenario, a borehole is creating a pinprick hole through one of the floating pieces of broken crust that, if conditions are just right, may end up spewing magma on the surface - i.e. creating a new volcano. Could be a really bad day for anyone directly downstream, but it isn't going to threaten the planet.