Drilling into a magma chamber could open up a new type of energy source
Scientists want to drill into a reservoir of liquid rock in Iceland. This method could revolutionize energy production.
New findings: Researchers hope that drilling into a magma chamber in Iceland will lead to a significant increase in knowledge, which will also be applied to energy production. Fagradalsfjall volcano eruption in Iceland.
Photo: Getty
Most people know Iceland because of its frequent volcanic eruptions. And recently the eruption of the Fagradalsfjall volcano near Reykjavik, which was increasingly affecting the town of Grindavik. The recurring natural hazard has its upside, too: The small island nation covers nearly 70 percent of its energy needs using geothermal power plants, where hot water from the Earth's crust is brought to the surface to power turbines.
Now scientists are planning something that was previously unimaginable: by 2026, the “Krafla Magma Testbed” (KMT) project wants to drill specifically into the active magma chamber of the volcano and try to tap into the extremely hot water vapor in the transition zone between the rock and the magma reservoir. In order to generate geothermal energy in one place to produce on an unprecedented scale, As reported by the scientific magazine “New Scientist”.
Magma chambers, in which rocks form in liquid form, are located at a depth of 30 to 100 kilometers below the Earth's surface. They can be found in oceans at a depth of about 10 kilometers below the sea floor. In Iceland, an above-sea-level continuation of a volcanic mountain range hidden underwater – the Mid-Atlantic Ridge – magma chambers exist only a few kilometers below the surface. Researchers and engineers now want to drill two test holes in one of them.
Even if we knew approximately the depths of magma chambers, there are no reliable geophysical methods to determine their precise location. Operators of the Icelandic energy company Landsvirkjun were even more astonished when, in 2009, while drilling for so-called supercritical water, which is extremely hot and under enormous pressure, they encountered an unplanned scenario: Engineers were running their own geothermal energy at a plant near the Krafla volcano. In northeastern Iceland, they were drilling deep when suddenly at 2,100 meters there was no longer any resistance and the drill seemed to fall. Then it suddenly stopped suddenly.
In 2009, a drilling operation by Landsvirkjun hit a magma chamber at a depth of 2.1 kilometers, resulting in massive emissions of steam and volcanic glass fragments.
Photography: Landsverkjon Bulletin (AFP)
Drilling specialists were initially able to pull the drill back, but then it could no longer be moved. During subsequent analysis, they discovered that the well at the depth of the incident had been plugged by extremely hard obsidian. Engineers accidentally drilled into a magma chamber. Temperatures there reach 1300 degrees Celsius.
Insights into magmatism and the formation of continental crust
In response to the incident, the “Krafla Magma Testbed” project was initiated by the then project manager Bjarne Pálsson and his team. The project has two goals: On the one hand, the goal is to drill directly into the magma chamber and expand knowledge about magma and the composition of rocks and continents using measuring devices that have not yet been developed. For this purpose, the world's first long-term magma observatory will be established.
Knowledge about magma is still very limited compared to lava. That's why those responsible for the project hope to gain new insights and opportunities for monitoring volcanic systems and predicting eruptions. “We have been to Mars and Venus,” explained Paolo Papale, director of research at the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy. For the scientific magazine “Science”.. “But we've never observed magma beneath the Earth's surface.” The results could help understand how magma moves through the Earth's crust.
Visualization of the suspected magma system beneath Krafla volcano. Wells that have already been drilled to produce geothermal energy are colored grey. The first planned drilling in a rhyolite magma chamber is shown in purple.
Image: American Geophysical Union/J.W. Catley
The pioneering project also aims to answer fundamental questions about the composition of the Earth's continental crust: the seafloor and much of Iceland are composed of basalt magma. But the harder continental crust is formed from viscous, silica-rich rhyolite magma that hardens into granite and rhyolite. The process is not yet understood in detail. Rhyolite magma samples can then shed light on how this process works around the world.
A new generation of geothermal power plants
On the other hand, the goal is to open new possibilities for geothermal energy production by drilling a shaft in the transition zone between the rock and the magma chamber and conducting experiments. During test drilling in 2009, engineers encountered fluids and gases with a temperature of about 900 degrees Celsius and a pressure 500 times higher than that found at the surface just before the magma reservoir. Common geothermal power plants use steam that is only about 250 degrees. So the efficiency of such new types of ultra-high-temperature geothermal power plants can be several times higher.
The new project could enable the geothermal power plant located at the foot of the Krafla volcano to provide several times more energy than before.
Photo: Getty Images
Those responsible for the project also hope that the new form of geothermal energy will make an important contribution to the energy transition: project manager Hjalti Páll Ingólfsson has a vision of creating power plants in the mid-Atlantic. Here one can tap into the magma chambers that lie just beneath the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, create a new seafloor, and use the energy thus obtained to produce low-carbon synthetic fuels.
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