Reporter
Getty PhotosI 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 instances within the final 1,000 years, and most just lately within the mid-Nineteen Eighties.
Bjorn Guðmundsson leads me to a grassy hillside. He’s operating a workforce 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 danger of eruptions and push geothermal power to new frontiers, by tapping into a particularly sizzling and doubtlessly limitless supply of volcano energy.
Beginning in 2027 the KMT workforce will start drilling the primary of two boreholes to create a singular underground magma observatory, round 2.1km (1.3 miles) below the bottom.
“It is like our moonshot. It’ll remodel lots 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 are able to actually take heed to the heartbeat 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 taking place to the magma,” he says.
Around the globe an estimated 800 million folks stay inside 100km of hazardous energetic volcanoes. The researchers hope their work may help save lives and cash.
Iceland has 33 energetic 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 in the Reykanes peninsula has broken infrastructure and upended lives in the neighborhood of Grindavik.
Mr Guðmundsson additionally factors to Eyjafjallajökull, which caused havoc in 2010 when an ash cloud precipitated over 100,000 flight cancellations, costing £3bn ($3.95bn).
“If we’d been higher in a position to predict that eruption, it might have saved some huge cash,” he says.
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 sizzling fluids deep underground, making steam to drive generators and generate electrical energy.
Within the valley beneath, the Krafla energy plant provides sizzling water and electrical energy to about 30,000 properties.
“The plan is to drill simply in need of the magma itself, presumably poke it a bit of bit,” says Bjarni Pálsson with a wry smile.
“The geothermal useful resource is situated simply above the magma physique, and we consider that’s round 500-600C,” says Mr Pálsson, the chief director of geothermal improvement 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 sizzling fluids, however the drill abruptly stopped because it intercepted surprisingly shallow magma.
“We have 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 finally destroyed the properly.
“This properly produced about 10 instances extra [energy] than the typical properly on this location,” says Mr Pálsson.
Simply two of those might provide the identical power as the facility plant’s 22 wells, he notes. “There may be an apparent sport changer.”
Greater than 600 geothermal energy crops are discovered worldwide, and a whole bunch 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.
Personal firms and analysis groups in a number of nations are additionally working in the 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 instances extra energy than commonplace geothermal wells.
“You have obtained New Zealand, Japan and Mexico all wanting, however KMT is the closest one to getting drill bit within the floor,” she says. “It is not straightforward and it isn’t essentially low-cost to get began.”
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 business, he says.
“Now we 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 workforce 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 doubtlessly 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, and so they came upon that they’d most likely performed this earlier than with out even realizing it. We consider it’s secure.”
Different dangers additionally must be thought of when drilling into the earth like poisonous gases and inflicting earthquakes, says Prof Archer. “However the geological setting in Iceland makes that most unlikely.”
The work will take years, however might deliver superior forecasting and supercharged volcano energy.
“I feel the entire geothermal world are watching the KMT mission,” says Prof Archer. “It’s doubtlessly fairly transformative.”
