A Solution to Our Clean Energy Problem May Lie Right Beneath Our Feet

On Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula, a short drive from the country’s capital, a team of scientists and engineers is pursuing what they see as an energy source of the future. To unlock it, they have drilled down toward the center of the Earth, through layers of soil and rock, stopping just short of a chamber of molten magma more than 15,000 feet below the surface, a scalding pocket so hot that it would melt a lead pipe. They aim to use that heat to power the energy-hungry world — or at least part of it. The scientists are partners in the Iceland Deep Drilling Project, known as IDDP. They’ve set up shop with a giant drill that extends high into the sky and then plunges into a field of volcanic rock that has sat largely untouched for centuries. The operation takes place just miles from the spot where the protagonist in Jules Verne’s 19th-century novel Journey to the Center of the Earth launched his own fictional voyage to the Earth’s core. But science fiction this is not. Engineers have already proved that it’s possible to capture heat from the Earth — called geothermal energy — and use it to make electricity. For decades, they have done this in places, like Iceland, where shifting tectonic plates and volcanic activity have pushed heat from the Earth’s core toward the surface, in the form of steam or hot liquid water. The team behind IDDP aims to dig even deeper below the planet’s surface to harness that energy at ...
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized climate change energy Environment Iceland Source Type: news