Iceland is going to use new high-temperature wells for energy

Iceland is known to many of us, first of all, because geothermal energy is actively used there. Icelanders not only heat their homes with the heat of the planet itself and receive relatively inexpensive energy for the needs of their country, but also plan to supply surplus energy to the EU countries.

And to increase the efficiency of their geothermal stations, Icelanders are now conducting experiments on working with high-temperature wells (their depth is more than one and a half kilometers). Moreover, more or less detailed information on this project began to appear only now, despite the fact that the tests have been carried out for several years.

Typically, Icelandic systems operate at temperatures of 40-150 degrees Celsius, but not so long ago it was decided to drill deep wells to reach the layer with liquid magma. Actually, in Iceland this is quite simple, since this region is one of the most active on Earth in terms of volcanic activity (the thing is that the island is located on the crest of the North Atlantic global tectonic seam , along which the North American and Eurasian diverge lithospheric plates).

The first well drilled as part of the Deep Drilling Project (IDDP) reached a target at a depth of about 2 kilometers (1.3 miles). Thus, it became possible to bring the steam temperature to 450 degrees Celsius, which increases the efficiency of the geothermal power plant. Actually, everything described was done back in 2010, and for two consecutive years, Icelanders worked on a drilled well with high-temperature steam, until the well was closed for maintenance in 2012. Now the goal of the project participants is to work with the well again, or to drill a new one.

All this was and is an experimental project, which can be called very successful, since now there are all the prerequisites for using the energy of the subsoil in volcanically active regions much more efficiently than was possible until recently.

Via dvice