SCIENCE
Magma Bohrloch verspricht unbegrenzte Energie
January 10, 2024 -
Wissenschafter in Island planen eine vulkanische Magmakammer anzubohren, um unbegrenzte saubere Energie zu gewinnen – millionenfach mehr als der jährliche Energiebedarf der Welt.
Eruptionen werden nicht erwartet.
Following the discovery in 2009 of magma at a modest depth of only 2.1km by the Icelandic Deep Drilling Project at Krafla volcano, when the expectation had been to find a reservoir of supercritical water above a much deeper magma chamber, the Krafla Magma Testbed was established to create the world’s first research centre able to study magma directly.
Drilling will begin on the $25 million project in 2024, and the project will investigate the possibility of using supercritical water, heated by the magma at up to 1,000˚C, as a clean renewable energy source. AltaRock Energy, a Washington-based geothermal energy company, estimates that 0.1% of the Earth’s heat could supply humanity’s total energy needs for two million years.
Water reaches a supercritical state - where it has the properties of both a liquid and a gas - at over 373˚C and 220 Bar pressure. Typical geothermal systems use naturally occurring water vapour at only 250˚C to power a turbine, compared to 450˚C for fossil fuel power plants. Supercritical Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) involve cold water being pumped down to the magma chamber, where it would be heated to a supercritical state as it flows through natural fractures in the rock, then pumped back to the surface to power turbines with much greater efficiency.
- World's first tunnel to a magma chamber could unleash unlimited energy (New Scientist)
- Understanding magma (Krafla Magma Testbed)
- Forget oil or water. In Iceland, well diggers seek to tap a volcano’s magma (Science)
- “Supercritical” geothermal could power everything (Energy Monitor)
- The Quest for Magma (Inside Science)