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Iceland is one of the most active volcanic places in the world
I'm in one of the world's volcanic hotspots, northeast of Iceland, near Krafla Volcano.
A short distance away, I can see the rim of the volcano's crater lake, while to the south, steam vents and mud pools bubble.
Krafla has erupted about 30 times over the past 1,000 years, most recently in the mid-1980s.
Bjorn Por Guðmundsson leads me to a grassy hill. He leads a team of international scientists who plan to drill into Krafla's magma.
“We are in the place where we are going to drill,” he said.
The Krafla Magma Testbed (KMT) aims to advance the understanding of how magma, or molten rock, behaves underground.
This knowledge could help scientists predict the risk of eruptions and push geothermal energy to new frontiers, harnessing an extremely hot and potentially limitless source of volcanic energy.
Bjorn Por Guðmundsson leads a team that plans to explore the magma beneath this location.
Starting in 2026, the KMT team will begin drilling the first of two boreholes to create a unique underground magma observatory, approximately 2.1 km (1.3 miles) underground.
“It’s like our moonshot. This will transform a lot of things,” says Yan Lavelle, professor of volcanology at the Ludvigs-Maximllian University of Munich and who heads the KMT scientific committee.
Volcanic activity is usually monitored by tools such as seismometers. But unlike surface lava, we don't know much about underground magma, explains Professor Lavelle.
“We would like to instrument the magma so that we can really listen to the pulse of the Earth,” he adds.
Pressure and temperature sensors will be placed in the molten rock. “These are the two key parameters we need to probe to be able to predict in advance what happens to the magma,” he says.
Worldwide, an estimated 800 million people live within 100 km of dangerous active volcanoes. The researchers hope their work can help save lives and money.
Iceland has 33 active volcanic systems and sits on the rift where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates separate.
More recently, a wave of eight eruptions on the Reykanes Peninsula damaged infrastructure and disrupted life in the Grindavik community.
Mr Guðmundsson also points to Eyjafjallajökull, which caused devastation in 2010 when an ash cloud caused more than 100,000 flight cancellations, costing £3 billion ($3.95 billion).
“If we could have predicted this eruption better, we could have saved a lot of money,” he says.
Krafla is surrounded by steaming ponds and mud pools
KMT's second drilling will develop a test bed for a new generation of geothermal power plants, which exploit the extreme temperature of magma.
“Magmas are extremely energetic. They are the heat source that powers hydrothermal systems that lead to geothermal energy. Why not go to the source? asks Professor Lavelle.
About 65% of Iceland's electricity and 85% of domestic heating comes from geothermal energy, which harnesses hot fluids deep underground as a heat source to run turbines and produce electricity.
In the valley below, the Krafla power station provides hot water and electricity to around 30,000 homes.
“The plan is to drill just before the magma itself, possibly to pierce it a little,” explains Bjarni Pálsson with a wry smile.
“The geothermal resource is located just above the magma body, and we think it is around 500-600°C,” says Mr Pálsson, executive director of geothermal development at national electricity supplier Landsvirkjun.
Magma is very difficult to locate underground, but in 2009, Icelandic engineers made a chance discovery.
They had planned to drill 4.5 km deep and extract extremely hot fluids, but the drilling stopped abruptly because it intercepted surprisingly shallow magma.
“We absolutely did not expect to encounter magma at only 2.1 km depth,” says Pálsson.
Encountering magma is rare and has only occurred here in Kenya and Hawaii.
Superheated steam measuring a record temperature of 452°C rose, while the chamber temperature was estimated at 900°C.
Dramatic video shows smoke and steam. The intense heat and corrosion eventually destroyed the well.
“This well produced about 10 times more (energy) than the average well in this location,” says Pálsson.
Just two of them could provide the same energy as the plant's 22 wells, he notes. “There is an obvious change in the situation. »
There is a huge demand for geothermal energy
There are more than 600 geothermal power plants around the world, with hundreds more planned, amid growing demand for 24-hour, low-carbon energy. These wells are typically around 2 feet deep. .5 km and withstand temperatures below 350°C.
Private companies and research teams from several countries are also working on more advanced, ultra-deep geothermal, called superhot rock, where temperatures exceed 400°C at depths of 5 to 15 km.
Reaching deeper and much hotter, heat reserves are the “holy grail”, says Rosalind Archer, dean of Griffith University and former director of the Geothermal Institute of New Zealand.
It's the higher energy density that's so promising, she explains, because each borehole can produce five to 10 times more energy than standard geothermal wells.
“New Zealand, Japan and Mexico are all looking, but KMT is the closest country to putting the bit in the ground,” she says. “It’s not easy and it’s not necessarily cheap to start with.”
Engineers will need to develop new drilling technology to work around volcanoes
Drilling in this extreme environment will be technically difficult and require special materials.
Professor Lavelle is convinced that it is possible. Extreme temperatures are also found in jet engines, metallurgy and the nuclear industry, he explains.
“We need to explore new materials and alloys that are more resistant to corrosion,” says Sigrun Nanna Karlsdottir, professor of industrial and mechanical engineering at the University of Iceland.
In a laboratory, his team of researchers tests materials to withstand extreme heat, pressure and corrosive gases. Geothermal wells are typically constructed of carbon steel, she explains, but this quickly loses its strength when temperatures exceed 200°C.
“We focus on high-quality nickel alloys as well as titanium alloys,” she explains.
Drilling into volcanic magma seems potentially risky, but Mr Guðmundsson thinks otherwise.
“We don't think that sticking a needle into a huge magma chamber will create an explosive effect,” he says.
“This happened in 2009, and they found out that they had probably done this before, without even knowing it. We think it's safe.
Other risks also need to be considered when drilling into the earth, such as toxic gases and earthquakes, says Professor Archer. “But Iceland’s geological environment makes this very unlikely.”
The work will take years, but could bring advanced predictions and supercharged volcanic power.
“I think the whole geothermal world is following the KMT project,” says Professor Archer. “It’s potentially very transformative.”
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