I’m 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 dirt swimming pools bubble away.
Krafla has erupted round 30 occasions within the final 1,000 years, and most lately within the mid-Eighties.
Bjorn Por Guðmundsson leads me to a grassy hillside. He is operating a crew of worldwide scientists who plan to drill into Krafla’s magma.
“We’re standing on the spot where we are 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 may assist scientists forecast the danger of eruptions and push geothermal vitality to new frontiers, by tapping into an especially scorching and doubtlessly limitless supply of volcano energy.
Starting in 2026 the KMT crew will start drilling the primary of two boreholes to create a novel underground magma observatory, round 2.1km (1.3 miles) below the bottom.
“It’s like our moonshot. It’s going to transform a lot of things,” says Yan Lavelle, a professor of vulcanology on the Ludvigs-Maximllian University in Munich, and who heads KMT’s science committee.
Volcanic exercise is normally monitored by instruments like seismometers. But in contrast to lava on the floor, we don’t know very a lot in regards to the magma under floor, explains Prof Lavelle.
“We’d like to instrument the magma so we can really listen to the pulse of the earth,” he provides.
Pressure and temperature sensors might be positioned into the molten rock. “These are the two key parameters we need to probe, to be able to tell ahead of time what’s happening to the magma,” he says.
Around the world an estimated 800 million people live within 100km of hazardous active volcanoes. The researchers hope their work can help save lives and money.
Iceland has 33 active volcano systems, and sits on the rift where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates pull apart.
Most recently, a wave of eight eruptions in the Reykanes peninsula has damaged infrastructure and upended lives in the community of Grindavik.
Mr Guðmundsson also points to Eyjafjallajökull, which caused havoc in 2010 when an ash cloud caused over 100,000 flight cancellations, costing £3bn ($3.95bn).
“If we’d been better able to predict that eruption, it could have saved a lot of money,” he says.
KMT’s second borehole will develop a test-bed for a new generation of geothermal power stations, which exploit magma’s extreme temperature.
“Magma are extremely energetic. They are the heat source that power the hydrothermal systems that leads to geothermal energy. Why not go to the source?” asks Prof Lavelle.
Some 65% of Iceland’s electricity and 85% of household heating, comes from geothermal, which taps hot fluids deep underground, as a source of heat to drive turbines and generate electricity.
In the valley below, the Krafla power plant supplies hot water and electricity to about 30,000 homes.
“The plan is to drill just short of the magma itself, possibly poke it a little bit,” says Bjarni Pálsson with a wry smile.
“The geothermal useful resource is positioned simply above the magma physique, and we imagine that’s round 500-600C,” says Mr Pálsson, the manager director of geothermal improvement at nationwide energy supplier, Landsvirkjun.
Magma could be very arduous to find underground, however in 2009 Icelandic engineers made an opportunity discovery.
They had deliberate to make a 4.5km deep borehole and extract extraordinarily scorching fluids, however the drill abruptly stopped because it intercepted surprisingly shallow magma.
“We were absolutely not expecting to hit magma at only 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 reveals billowing smoke and steam. Acute warmth and corrosion finally destroyed the effectively.
“This well produced about 10 times more [energy] than the average well in this location,” says Mr Pálsson.
Just two of those may provide the identical vitality as the ability plant’s 22 wells, he notes. “There is an obvious game changer.”
More than 600 geothermal energy crops are discovered worldwide, and a whole lot extra are deliberate, amid rising demand for round the clock low carbon vitality. These wells are usually round 2.5km deep, and deal with temperatures under 350°C.
Private firms and analysis groups in a number of international locations are additionally working in 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 University, and former director of the Geothermal Institute in New Zealand.
It’s the upper vitality density that’s so promising, she explains, as every borehole can produce 5 to 10 occasions extra energy than customary geothermal wells.
“You’ve got New Zealand, Japan and Mexico all looking, but KMT is the closest one to getting drill bit in the ground,” she says. “It’s not easy and it’s not necessarily cheap to get started.”
Drilling into this excessive atmosphere might be technically difficult, and requires particular supplies.
Prof Lavelle is assured it’s potential. Extreme temperatures are additionally present in jet engines, metallurgy and the nuclear business, he says.
“We have to explore new materials and more corrosion resistant alloys,” says Sigrun Nanna Karlsdottir, a professor of business and mechanical engineering on the University of Iceland.
Inside a lab, her crew 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 power when temperatures exceed 200°C.
“We’re focusing on high grade nickel alloys and also titanium alloys,” she says.
Drilling into volcanic magma sounds doubtlessly dangerous, however Mr Guðmundsson thinks in any other case.
“We don’t believe that sticking a needle into a huge magma chamber is going to create an explosive effect,” he asserts.
“This happened in 2009, and they found out that they’d probably done this before without even knowing it. We believe it’s safe.”
Other dangers additionally should be thought-about when drilling into the earth like poisonous gases and inflicting earthquakes, says Prof Archer. “But the geological environment in Iceland makes that very unlikely.”
The work will take years, however may convey superior forecasting and supercharged volcano energy.
“I think the whole geothermal world are watching the KMT project,” says Prof Archer. “It is potentially quite transformative.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1e8q4j1yygo