Citation: Scott, S., Driesner, T. & Weis, P. Geologic controls on supercritical geothermal resources above magmatic intrusions. Nature Communications. 6:7837 doi: 10.1038/ncomms8837 (2015)
Transparent, opalescent steam discharges from the IDDP-1 borehole at the Krafla volcano in Iceland. (Image: Kristján Einarsson/IDDP) |
The Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP) was founded by a group of international scientists who sought to drill to deeper, hotter conditions where water is a single-phase, intermediate density, supercritical fluid. Basic thermodynamic considerations suggest that wells drilled into supercritical geothermal resources could potentially provide an order of magnitude more electricity than a conventional geothermal well.
A plan was developed to drill a borehole to 4-5 km depth in the Krafla geothermal system, with the aim of discovering a reservoir at supercritical temperatures (>374 °C) and pressures (>220 bars).
Read More........
Read More........