Posted on 01/12/2024 10:50:11 PM PST by Red Badger
You don't have to be an expert volcanologist to figure out that drilling straight into the side of a volcano is a rather ambitious idea.
But that's exactly what a team of researchers are planning to do in the next couple of years in Iceland in what would be a scientific first.
The aim is to rapidly advance our understanding of how magma behaves underground, and what prompts volcanoes to erupt when they do. At the same time, the team is hopeful of being able to tap into a near-unlimited source of clean energy.
This controlled breaching of a magma chamber is being undertaken by the Krafla Magma Testbed (KMT) organization – named after the Krafla volcanic caldera in the northeast of Iceland.
How the site of the drilling operation might look. (KMT)
"It is to be science infrastructure analogous to a telescope array, polar station, particle accelerator, or seabed observatory where a previously little-known environment can be explored and understood," explained members of the KMT team in a 2018 paper.
The work is building on previous efforts at the start of the century to drill close to one of the Krafla magma chambers. On that occasion, the intent was only to get near to the chamber to explore geothermal energy options.
However, the chamber wasn't as deep down as expected: the project accidentally broke through into the magma vault, which eventually prevented any further attempts to drill, as the overwhelming heat (450°C or 842°F) destroyed the well.
It did, however, confirm drilling into a magma chamber doesn't cause the volcano to erupt.
Now, scientists are trying again. Magma chambers are notoriously hard to locate, so the Krafla site offers an unusual opportunity to get at one – and to then be able to conduct experiments that have never previously been possible.
"Being able to go into the crust and sample magma would give us huge knowledge," KMT's Hjalti Páll Ingólfsson told Graham Lawton at New Scientist. "We hope to be able to have a direct measurement at least of temperature, which has never been done before."
A lot of challenges lie ahead of course, including the development of drills and sensors capable of surviving the intense heat, pressure, and acidity of these chambers. If all goes to plan, drilling will get underway in 2026.
Over the years, more and more research is planned. The nature of the Krafla site means its magma chamber could give us new information about how continental crust is formed, and help experts in predicting when eruptions will happen at similar volcanoes.
Then there's the clean energy angle. Drilling on a second well is expected to start in 2028, with plans to tap into ultra-hot water stored at ultra-high pressures to drive turbines, all powered by what nature has already given us.
"There are endless opportunities," Ingólfsson told Lawton. "The only thing we need to do is to learn how to tame this monster."
I thought Iceland already used geothermal energy — I suppose with a different mechanism.
My thoughts too. They have no idea what the pressure is down there..
Saw it way back then! Liked it so well I now have it on DVD. Saw it a few weeks ago!
You beat me to it!
However, the chamber wasn’t as deep down as expected: the project accidentally broke through into the magma vault, which eventually prevented any further attempts to drill, as the overwhelming heat (450°C or 842°F) destroyed the well.
It did, however, confirm drilling into a magma chamber doesn’t cause the volcano to erupt.
A magma chamber is a large pool of liquid rock beneath the surface of the Earth. The molten rock, or magma, in such a chamber is less dense than the surrounding country rock, which produces buoyant forces on the magma that tend to drive it upwards.[1] If the magma finds a path to the surface, then the result will be a volcanic eruption; consequently, many volcanoes are situated over magma chambers.[2] These chambers are hard to detect deep within the Earth, and therefore most of those known are close to the surface, commonly between 1 km and 10 km down.[3]
........
In Iceland, Thrihnukagigur, discovered in 1974 by cave explorer Árni B. Stefánsson and opened for tourism in 2012, is the only volcano in the world where visitors can take an elevator and safely descend into the magma chamber.[15]
‘drilling into a magma chamber doesn’t cause the volcano to erupt’.
It didn’t cause THAT volcano to erupt.
Nothing wrong with dreams, vision and ambition so long as you can afford them or find someone else to do that for you. All these good things have to eventually pass the feasibility test and not go off half-cocked solving one problem only to find the way blocked by more that are even harder to conquer. Even then, they miss seeing barriers to success.
I have seen otherwise brilliant and extremely enthusiastic people from science and other industries motivated to eclipse those who they consider mired in ignorance and tradition fail because of even small things they themselves are ignorant of. It has been amazing to me how many people who have lots of money and should seem to know better are drawn into funding wild schemes. I guess that is what it takes for luck to strike.
great flic
Agree!
I agree. I remember my science teacher in the 1970s telling us that. But he also said that even after we figure how to do it, will it be cheap enough to use it?
Perhaps the people actually doing the work are many steps ahead of the people in the peanut gallery.
There are relatively few sites near population centers that would use the energy.
The water from many geothermal sites is very corrosive, making them unusable.
Pretty much my thought as well. From the article:
It did, however, confirm drilling into a magma chamber doesn't cause the volcano to erupt.
Hold my beer and watch me drill into this volcano! I don't think it will erupt.
LOL
My daughter and son-in-law will really be pissed if they screw up the Blue Lagoon...
No way, man. Cold fusion is the way to go, and it's industry ready. There's that genius Rossi who's got it all figured out and up & running.
Or so I used to read here daily for a looong time.
Boy that’s a frightening picture from Herculaneum.
“Perhaps the people actually doing the work are many steps ahead of the people in the peanut gallery”.
From your own ‘about’ page: “ Name-calling, stereotyping, and childish insults do not substitute for rational thought and intelligent discussion”.
There’s a lot of B-movies that start out this way.....
In Geyserville, in northern California, the geysers have been tapped for over fifty years to produce electricity. It feeds electricity to a large area.
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