Iceland drills deep for magma's heat

摘要

Drilling into hot rocks to tap geothermal energy is one thing. Drilling deep enough to tap the blazing heat from magma oozing into volcanoes is quite another, offering a huge increase in the potential to exploit Earth's energy. That is the task of a rig now drilling 5 kilometres into the rugged landscape of old lava flows in Reykjanes, at the south-west corner of Iceland. Drilling began on 12 August. By the end of the year, the Iceland Deep Drilling Project hopes to have created the hottest hole in the world, hitting temperatures anywhere between 400 and 1000℃.