Iceland Deep Drilling project with unexpected turn
Alexander Richter
31 Oct 2009
The Icelandic Deep Drilling Project (IDDP) is taking an unexpected turn, as it now explores possibilities to use the drilled geothermal well at the Krafla geothermal field in the North of Iceland differently.
As reported in Icelandic Viðskiptablaðið earlier this month, the Icelandic Deep Drilling Project (IDDP) is taking an unexpected turn, as it now explores possibilities to use the drilled geothermal well at the Krafla geothermal field in the North of Iceland differently.
According to the article, it seems impossible to drill down to 4,500 meters depth because of unexpected magma at 2,000 meter depths. So people explore new possiblilities.
Because of the unexpected turn drilling into magma in June this year, the project is now on hold. The plan then was to drill down to 4,500 meters searching for super critical fluid at 375 centigrades and pressure of more than 220 bar.
With this project, it is expected that the energy output of this deep and super critical heat well could be much much more than from a traditional geothermal well.
Specialists at the National Energy Authority in Iceland are now convinced that drilling deepter at this geothermal field is not possible. Cold water is now pumped down the well and it will be tested later to see what the outcome will be. The hope is that the the well provide dry steam, but it is unclear how sustainable this would turn out to be.
This is currently only an idea on how to utilize the well drlled, but it is talked about that this well could provide a new opportunity for a system that could be the highest temperature system currently used in the world.
Despite the deep drilling not having shown the expected results, people involved in the project believe that the well itself is not a failure. There are ongoing discussions on if there should be drilled another well which could provide cold water to feed the system, which could provide hot water through the now existing well.
The IDDP project though is now exploring the possibility to drill on the Reykjanes peninsula. There, a well was drilled to 2,800 meter depth in the fall of 2008 with good results. The project itself needs to solve a number of technical isues, such as drilling ino such high temperature and pressure.
The companies behind the project are Landsvirkjun (Iceland’s National Power Company), HS Orka hf, Reykjavik Energy, the National Energy Authority, Alcoa Inc and Statoil New Energy AS.
Funding for the research part of the project came from the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) and the National Science Foundation. Iceland Drilling (Jarðboranir hf.) drilled the well and most engineering assistance is provided by ISOR, Iceland Geosurvey and Mannvit engineering, as well as a number of other players.
Source: Icelandic Viðskiptabladid (freely translated from Icelandic)
