News
IDDP-1 Drilled Into Magma at 2104 m. Depth
Drilling of the first IDDP (Iceland Deep Drilling Project) well at Krafla, Iceland, continued in March this year. Yesterday, June 24th, Iceland Drilling's rig drilled into molten rock at 2104 m depth. The drill string got stuck but circulation of cold water (60-65 l/s) through the drill string has been maintained. Occasionally there has been return of circulation otherwise a total LOC (loss of circulation) in the hole. The drill string is being pulled out and the situation is under full control. Similar incidents of drilling into magma have been met in another well at Krafla, and also in Hawaii. The IDDP team will study the situation in detail during the next few days and then decide on the continuation of the project.
Project Progress
The aim of the Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP) is to drill into geothermal resources at supercritical conditions, i.e. extremely high temperatures and pressure assumed to exist below 3.5 km depth at Krafla. The drilling of this well so far has been funded by Landsvirkjun (National Power Company) and Alcoa, and the intention was to continue drilling to 3.5 km depth before the IDDP program would take over the well and deepen it to 4.5 km. Evidently, this unexpected incident of hitting magma at only 2.1 km depth may affect the IDDP program at Krafla, but a thorough study of the situation will be undertaken. Potentially, this situation might enable a serious test of so-called engineered geothermal systems (EGS), where cold water is pumped into a neighboring well to be retrieved in the IDDP well as superheated steam. Further information of the IDDP drilling will be revealed at www.iddp.is and at www.icdp-online.org.
Consortium Members
The IDDP consortium is composed of the Landsvirkjun (National Power Company), HS Orka, Reykjavik Energy, National Energy Authority, Alcoa Inc. and Statoil New Energy AS. The International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) support the science program. The Iceland Drilling Company Ltd (Jardboranir) drills the well. Consultants to the IDDP program include personnel from the IDDP consortium, the Iceland GeoSurvey (ISOR), Mannvit, and partners from UK, Italy and other countries.
About the IDDP
The main purpose of the IDDP is to find out if it is economically feasible to extract energy and chemicals out of hydrothermal systems at supercritical conditions (over 375°C and 220 bar pressure). To study the supercritical hydrous fluid, an advanced drilling technology needs to be applied and a novel fluid handling and evaluation system designed. On March 25th 2009, Jardboranir Ltd drill rig Tyr started drilling into rocks again, at a depth of 796.7 m. See daily news from the drill site at the ICDP website.
Potential Benefits of the IDDP:
- Increased power output per well, perhaps by an order of magnitude, and production of higher-value, high-pressure, high-temperature steam.
- Development of an environmentally benign, high-enthalpy energy source below currently producing geothermal fields.
- Extended lifetime of the exploited geothermal reservoirs and power generation facilities.
- Re-evaluation of the geothermal resource base.
- Industrial, educational, and economic spin-off.
- Knowledge of permeability within drill fields below 2 km depth.
- Knowledge of heat transfer from magma to water.
- Heat sweeping by injection of water into hot, deep wells.
- Possible extraction of valuable chemical products?
- Advances in research on ocean floor hydrothermal systems.