Drilling surprise opens door to magma-powered electricity

Can enormous heat deep in the Earth be harnessed to provide energy for us on the surface? A promising report from a geothermal borehole project that accidentally struck magma—the same fiery, molten rock that spews from volcanoes—suggests it could.

The Icelandic Deep Drilling Project, IDDP, has been drilling shafts up to 5km deep in an attempt to harness the heat in the volcanic bedrock far below the surface of Iceland. But in 2009 a borehole at Krafla, Northeast Iceland, reached only 2,100m deep before unexpectedly striking a pocket of magma. The molten rock was intruding into the Earth’s upper crust from below at searing temperatures of 900 to 1000 degrees Celsius.

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> Can enormous heat deep in the Earth be harnessed to provide energy for us on the surface?

Geothermal power is well known in for example New Zealand. I haven’t heard much about the Australian Cooper Basin hot rock project lately – oh – it’s gone bankrupt

You don’t want to touch real magma, as contact with fluid magma is very bad for equipment.

But as a scientific research project, collecting liquid magma at great depth is wonderful.