Iceland drilled into a volcano and hit a magma chamber — and instead of disaster, it found the world's most powerful geothermal energy source ever accessed: 427 degrees Celsius, the highest temperature ever measured in a geothermal borehole.

 

"Iceland drilled into a volcano and hit a magma chamber — and instead of disaster, it found the world's most powerful geothermal energy source ever accessed.

The IDDP-2 borehole at the Reykjanes Peninsula in Iceland, drilled in 2017 and continuously studied since, reached 4,659 metres depth and penetrated the boundary between solid rock and partially molten magma — recording temperatures of 427 degrees Celsius, the highest temperature ever measured in a geothermal borehole. Steam from this depth, if harnessed, would generate electricity at efficiencies and pressures that conventional geothermal wells cannot approach. A single magma-adjacent well could theoretically produce 50 megawatts — ten times the output of a conventional geothermal well at the same location.

The Deep Drilling Project team that controls IDDP-2 spent six years studying the superheated steam that flows continuously from the well, measuring its chemical composition, pressure behaviour, and energy content before designing the wellhead equipment capable of controlling and utilising it commercially. In 2023, they announced that the engineering challenges of managing 427-degree supercritical steam — which behaves as neither gas nor liquid at these conditions — had been solved sufficiently to begin planning the world's first magma-enhanced geothermal well for commercial power generation.

Iceland already generates 30% of its electricity and 90% of its space heating from conventional geothermal. Magma-enhanced geothermal would multiply the energy density of each well by a factor of ten — transforming the country from a geothermal exporter of cheap electricity to an exporter of the engineering knowledge that could make volcanic regions worldwide — Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, Italy, New Zealand — into geothermal superpowers. Iceland did not just drill into a volcano. It found the energy source that volcanic nations have been sitting on without knowing how to use.

Source: Iceland Deep Drilling Project — IDDP-2 Supercritical Geothermal Well Progress Report 2023