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Science/Tech
See other Science/Tech Articles

Title: Drilling into a hot volcano (Iceland)
Source: BBC News
URL Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4846574.stm
Published: Mar 26, 2006
Author: Martin Redfern, BBC Radio science unit
Post Date: 2006-03-26 11:03:42 by robin
Keywords: None
Views: 72
Comments: 8

Drilling into a hot volcano
By Martin Redfern
BBC Radio science unit

Iceland volcano (BBC)
Land of steam: Iceland sits atop the Atlantic's mid-ocean ridge system
Geologists in Iceland are drilling directly into the heart of a hot volcano.

Their $20m project hopes to reveal more about the nature of mid-ocean ridges where new ocean floor is created. Such boreholes could ultimately yield 10 times as much geothermal power as any previous project.

Twenty years ago, geologist Gudmundur Omar Friedleifsson had a surprise when he lowered a thermometer down a borehole.

"We melted the thermometer," he recalls. "It was set for 380C; but it just melted. The temperature could have been 400 or even 500."

Speaking in the first of a new series on BBC Radio 4, called Five Holes in the Ground, he describes how this set him thinking about how much energy it might be possible to extract from Iceland's volcanic rocks.

At depth, the groundwater is way over 100C, but the pressure keeps it liquid. As Dr Friedleifsson puts it: "On the surface, you boil your egg at 100 degrees; but if you wanted to boil your egg at a depth of 2,500m, it would take 350."

Splitting floor

The landscape on the Reykjanes Ridge in southwest Iceland seems like an alien world.

There are pools of boiling mud and the hiss of steam escaping from fissures. There are also signs of industry - past, present and future - with an abandoned salt factory, working geothermal power stations and a big new drilling rig.

It is also an area of great natural beauty. Down on the shore, crashing Atlantic breakers are exposing fresh cliffs of pillow basalt, volcanic lava that has erupted under the sea and been rapidly quenched so that it forms features that look a bit like black toothpaste squeezed from a giant tube.

This is a young landscape. The most recent eruptions here occurred in the 13th Century and there could be new ones at any time.

Iceland is unusual geologically in that it exists above the ocean at all. It stands on the mid-ocean ridge system, the longest mountain range on the planet. This range runs around the world's oceans like the seam on a tennis ball.

It is here that new ocean floor is created as the continents drift apart.

For the most part, it is deep under the sea; it is the place where hydrothermal vents and their "black smokers" belch out super-heated water and dissolved minerals.

But Iceland stands on an additional plume of volcanic mantle rock that has lifted it above the Atlantic and made it accessible to geologists.

Hydrogen future

Iceland is already littered with geothermal power stations, producing most of the country's electricity from steam at around 240C, extracted from boreholes between 600 and 1,000m deep.

But now, the plan is to go much deeper. Omar Friedleifsson of the Iceland Geosurvey is leading the consortium of energy companies in the Iceland Deep Drilling Project.

Iceland could become the Kuwait of the North
Albert Albertsson, power station manager
Last year, they drilled down to a depth of 3,082m and since then have been conducting flow tests.

Later this year, they will put a pressure lining into their borehole and drill on down to more than 4km deep.

At that depth, they hope to encounter what is called supercritical water: water that is not simply a mixture of steam and hot water but a single phase which can carry much more energy.

Engineers on the project have calculated that increasing the temperature by 200 degrees and the pressure by 200 Bar will mean that, for the same flow rate, the energy extracted from such a borehole will go up from 5MW to 50MW.

Power station manager Albert Albertsson predicts that, by the end of the century, "Iceland could become the Kuwait of the North", exporting energy in the form of liquid hydrogen as part of a new hydrogen economy.

Precious place

Interest in the Iceland Deep Drilling Project is not solely for energy production.

Geologists have never had the chance before to penetrate the volcanic heart of a mid-ocean-ridge geothermal system and there is much they would like to learn.

As they get deeper, bore teams will change from the rotary drill, which produces rock fragments but can drill up to 200m per day, to a slower drill that produces useful core samples.

The project wants to study the geology, the energy flow and the chemical environment at great depth.

The blue lagoon (AP)
Blue Lagoon: A perfect place for a dip, especially during winter
Albert Albertson, at the nearby power station, likes to think of the energy as just a part of an integrated system.

Iceland's volcanic rocks are highly fractured and so, below about 50m, there is plenty of water.

For the next 40m or thereabouts, it is fresh drinking water, topped up by Iceland's generous rainfall. Below that, the water is salty; the ocean has managed to seep in.

However, it is the really deep supercritical water that is also laden with dissolved minerals. Mr Albertsson believes he may also be able to extract precious metals, such as copper, silver and gold from the water.

After the water has gone through his turbines, it is still at about 40C. Some of that excess energy is used for district heating and for horticulture in greenhouses.

It also warms one of Iceland's biggest tourist attractions: the Blue Lagoon, a vast outdoor lake which, even in March, greets bathers with the temperature of a hot bath.

There are supposed benefits from the silica rich water with its faint smell of sulphur, and the white silica mud is exported for health and beauty treatments.

Mr Albertsson told the BBC that he himself is a regular visitor.

"For me, the ideal time to take a dip is in the middle of winter, in the middle of the night, looking up at the stars and the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights."

Five Holes in the Ground is broadcast this coming week on BBC Radio 4, starting on Monday 27 March at 1445 GMT / 1545 BST. You can listen again to the programmes on the website once they have been broadcast.


Poster Comment:

Didn't someone recently post Iceland's economy would tank soon?

"Iceland could become the Kuwait of the North" (6 images)

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#1. To: robin (#0)

We were talking about how nice it seemed up there - I don't know about their economy "tanking," though.

Seems like ours', as now the biggest debtor nation EVER, has a much better shot at ending up in the crapper.

Lod  posted on  2006-03-26   11:16:24 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: lodwick (#1)

#44. To: robin (#42)

Also, and this is no joke, the end of something called the "yen carry trade" (ask one of the UnUsual Suspects for a more precise definition of what that is) has caused a run on the Icelandic currency in recent weeks. It may be "Weimar Iceland" before too much longer.

Webster G. Tarpley has been talking about it this afternoon on his World Crisis Radio show on RBN.

Sam Houston posted on 2006-03-18 16:43:57 ET

"Weimar Iceland" is the phrase I remembered. This thread was about our troops pulling out of Iceland.

”We have room but for one flag... We have room but for one language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty, and that is the loyality to the American people.” - Theodore Roosevelt

robin  posted on  2006-03-26   11:36:17 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: robin (#2)

Yes, I remember that. It seems like only a week ago. ;)

The reason I am following Iceland's currency crisis closely is that it caused some of the other "emerging market" currencies elsewhere in the world in which I have investments to go down also against the U.S. dollar. New Zealand was particularly hard hit.

Ironically, right now I am listening to the Roger Arnold Show and he is talking with a guest about the Iceland issue. You can listen here. If you go to the archives later today, it will be near the end of the second hour.

Sam Houston  posted on  2006-03-26   11:55:54 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: Sam Houston, lodwick (#3)

(Sorry, I should have pinged you; glad you found it.)

That's interesting because New Zealand and Iceland are both considered wonderful places to live.

Thanks for the link.

”We have room but for one flag... We have room but for one language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty, and that is the loyality to the American people.” - Theodore Roosevelt

robin  posted on  2006-03-26   11:58:14 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: Sam Houston (#3)

Thanks for the linkage - I'd never heard of Roger.

Lod  posted on  2006-03-26   12:07:28 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#6. To: lodwick (#5)

Roger may be WAY over my head.

Lod  posted on  2006-03-26   12:08:45 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: lodwick (#6)

He's not very entertaining. I learned of his program from Richard W. (Arete) on the Market WrapUp thread. I think Richard stopped listening years ago. I don't listen on a regular basis anymore. Roger Arnold insulted me and called me a "bad man" over the air last summer for questioning the sanity of his desire for our glorious military forces to "nuke" someone, anyone over the London subway bombing. Roger is an ex-Marine. You can tell he is very conflicted over globalism, which he knows is happening, and how it is doing away with the national sovereignty for which the U.S. Marines thought they were fighting.

All I had done was email him that he was being "played" by the whole phony War on Terror paradigm. About an hour later, a woman called in and said much the same thing, including questioning the official story of what happended on 9-11, and he had calmed down enough by then to where he actually allowed her to make her points.

Sam Houston  posted on  2006-03-26   14:23:51 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#8. To: Sam Houston (#7)

You can tell he is very conflicted over globalism, which he knows is happening, and how it is doing away with the national sovereignty for which the U.S. Marines thought they were fighting.

Hopefully, he'll work his way through it (just like all of us have) and get with the reality of what's happening in our world.

The last half of today's show about how good were zero-down and interest only mortgages lost me as a listener - I've seen the damage that those insane products can do to individuals and to families.

Lod  posted on  2006-03-26   14:32:01 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


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