Technology:

Why Volcanoes are the Energy Source of the Future (Quartz)

(Courtesy AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)

Rather than give up when their initial plan failed, the engineers at the Iceland Deep Drilling Project decided to see whether the hole they drilled would form a reservoir of usable hot water on its own, as water from the surrounding, fractured rock flowed past the magma. Astonishingly, it worked. Two years later, the scientists were able to draw water from their well at 450°C (842°F), a world record.

While 450°C is not hot enough at atmospheric pressure to be supercritical, it still contains an enormous amount of usable energy. As a result, engineers estimated they could use the well to create a power plant capable of generating 36 megawatts of electricity. That’s 20 times less than what a typical coal-fired power plant can generate, but it’s often the case that a geothermal power plant will have more than one well. Plus, geothermal power doesn’t come with any fuel costs or appreciable carbon emissions.

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