Thursday, March 29, 2012

Iceland:

Drawing Heat from Hell (ScienceNordic)

The Tyr Rig, seen in the background, drilled the 
hole at so IDDP-1 near the edge of the crater Víti, 
which is now inundated with water. Víti means 
Hell in Icelandic. (Photo: IDDP)
Water near glowing magma is so hot and under such high pressure that it has ten times the energy of normal geothermal sources. Can the Icelanders make use of this heat from the underworld?

Krafla is in the north of Iceland. This dip in the landscape is a caldera ten kilometres wide – a geological feature like a cauldron, created when the core of a volcano collapsed in the distant past.

The crater Víti is inside Krafla. Víti means “Hell” in Icelandic. In 1724 this crater erupted.

Icelandic scientists have drilled a two-kilometre deep well into the crater to judge opportunities for utilising this deep geo-energy.