Drilling for Clean Energy

Abstract:

iceland

 

By using the most recent, technologically advanced equipment, engineers have begun to drill into the earth’s surface to harness endless geothermal energy.

For over 100 years, humans have used geothermal energy to produce electricity, now the goal is to generate an even more powerful source of clean electricity using the heat of volcanic areas. Whether it can become controlled has yet to be confirmed.

Hjalti Páll Ingólfsson, from the Geothermal Research Group (GEORG) in Iceland works on on the DEEPEGS project, under which a team of geothermal researchers recently drilled the world's deepest well in an active volcanic area — the HS Orka geothermal field in Iceland — reaching a depth of 4,659 meters. They hope to tap into the limitless supply of geothermal energy by accessing searing hot water under such extreme pressure that it's in a supercritical state, which has properties of both a gas and a liquid.

“Drilling into a volcanic system, we can expect much more heat,” explained Ingólfsson. However, there are also risks to drilling into volcanic areas. “We can expect magma, which we actually did get in another well.” In addition to magma, which the engineers need to make sure they avoid, volcanic rock contains many faults and cracks, which can cause the drill to get stuck, slowing down the drilling process and increasing the difficulty.