Iceland To Drill Hole Into Volcano 275
G3ckoG33k writes "BBC reports that Iceland will drill a hole into a volcano so it can tap heat from it, which eventually is hoped to produce commercially available energy. From the article: "Twenty years ago, geologist Gudmundur Omar Friedleifsson had a surprise when he lowered a thermometer down a borehole. 'We melted the thermometer,' he recalls. 'It was set for 380C; but it just melted.'". Excuse me, Gudmundur, but how could that ever have been a 'surprise'..."
Warn Iceland! (Score:5, Funny)
When will people learn that there is no safe form [phillyburbs.com] of energy?!
The volcano gods are gonna be so angered when they find out Iceland is mooching the heat. If I know my mythology, nothing (and I mean nothing) pisses a god off like free stuff for humans. We should just rename Iceland to New Pompeii right now.
Re:Warn Iceland! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Warn Iceland! (Score:5, Funny)
Pitch Guy 1: "Boy it sure is cold out today! Now, I know this sounds a little far out there, but we've been studying the volcano over there and we predict that it has energy equivalent to 20 million tons of TNT. Now that energy is, by our god given right, ours. It's just as valuable as the oil underneath the Middle East. So, we induce an eruption."
Pitch Guy 2: "It's that simple. But John, won't the people be mad that the government is getting all this free energy?"
Pitch Guy 1: "No, no, here's the best part. That energy will be distributed
Pitch Guy 2: "Gentlemen, I think the real question here today is, 'How can we afford not to induce an eruption?'"
Re:Warn Iceland! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Warn Iceland! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Warn Iceland! (Score:2)
Re:Warn Iceland! (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't give it that many stars.
Re:Warn Iceland! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Warn Iceland! (Score:3, Interesting)
Having visited Iceland, I'd be willing to bet that the Icelanders have already talked it over with the volcano gods and cut them in for a share of the profits. This is, after all, a country that builds roads around boulders because the elves live in them.
Re:Warn Iceland! (Score:3, Funny)
And I suppose you could think of a better reason to build roads around boulders?
Re:Warn Iceland! (Score:2)
The volcano gods are gonna be so angered when they find out Iceland is mooching the heat. If I know my mythology, nothing (and I mean nothing) pisses a god off like free stuff for humans.
Who said anything about mooching or getting stuff for free? They are just going to toss in a virgin every now and then, problem solved. I bet there will be a shortage of virgin real damn quick, followed real soon by a population increase.
Deep Thought by Jack Handy (Score:4, Funny)
If you ever drop your car keys in lava, forget it man, they're gone.
Re:Deep Thought by Jack Handy (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure his wife was PISSED! (Score:4, Funny)
"Yeah Honey, I was just standing there, and some weird shriveled old bald guy bit it off my hand, and then he fell into a lava pit......I know it sounds weird. Why was I by the lava pit anyway?.....No, there were no women around there......Well yeah I had been drinking and eating some Elven bread and liquor...The broach?....That was just a present... Well she's the Elf Queen.....Well no, She's not married.....Yes, she gave me the cloak too.... What do you mean I have to sleep outside tonight?"
Missed Reference? (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Doctor Who (Score:5, Informative)
After watching Doctor Who for the first time with the new series last year, I've actually started going through all the old Doctor Who stories I never saw in chronological order, and boy is there a lot of (26 seasons, to be precise). And I just happened to have watch Inferno yesterday, so it is fresh on my mind, and was actually the first thing I thought of when I saw this newsbit also.
Consequent sartorial change (Score:2)
Geothermal power is really important (Score:5, Interesting)
Now if they can build a geothermal plant that actually improves the landscape, I think they are on to something. Free energy ceases to be free when you ruin the surrounding area with ugly power plants.
Re:Geothermal power is really important (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and if anyone wants to decide to build a dam near me, just make sure that you give me the heads up so that I can buy a few thousand acres of future waterfront before the prices go way up. (Hey, for the kind of money we're talking, I'll play the game, too!)
Re:Geothermal power is really important (Score:3, Interesting)
Just look at Russia, it has the largest hydro deployment in the world now and the results are not pretty. River deltas are drying, there are massive changes to the environment, climate which was as healthy as a climate can get 100 years ago has become practically lethal in many places. A big hydroelectric tends to keep the river right after it open all winter. As a result the humidity goes into the 100% condensing range which when the outside temperature is around -40 is outright deadly.
Re:Geothermal power is really important (Score:2)
Re:Geothermal power is really important (Score:3, Informative)
I grew up in North Dakota and have fond memories of scraping ice off my windshield while wearing boxers at below zero (with no wind or humidity). I would never consider doing that here in Tennessee 'cuz 29 degrees with 60% humidity is COLD!
Re:Geothermal power is really important (Score:2)
Re:Geothermal power is really important (Score:3, Informative)
So if you said, when I lived in ND and went out to get the mail in my boxers and didn't get cold because of 15% RH versus freezing my sack off in pants doing
Re:Geothermal power is really important (Score:2)
Now why would they want to do that. Were you one of the politician who was critical in getting the funding (and had your hand out)?
These guys aren't going to let you in on their game unless you have something to bring to the table.
Re:Geothermal power is really important (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not aware of any of these kinds of issues with geothermal (I really do support the idea), but then I don't know that much about the technology. Just pointing out that hydroelectric is far from 'free' when you build dams to do it. The thing is not everyone has something the size of Niagara Falls to generate power from. (Even then , Niagara does not acount for very much of Ontario's total power generation.)
Re:Geothermal power is really important (Score:2)
As
TANSTAAFL (Score:2)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298814/ [imdb.com] the core could stop rotating
Personally, the one lesson I've learned in life, is that NOTHING is without consequences.
Make a simple change to make something easier, you may find you've made something else harder...
The fact is, nothing is 'without' issues.. they just may not be readily apparent before they are present.
and they may be disasters....
mastermind... (Score:2)
But forget that, great job getting a reference to "The Core" in there.
Re:TANSTAAFL (Score:2)
Even classier, how the first link doesn't say anything about the land sinking in. Genius. Mods take notice, this is a classic troll.
Re:TANSTAAFL (Score:2)
"it may cause sinking of land at the surface"
As to the movie ref, consider, take the heat out of the center planet, will the magnetic core still do it's job?
Re:Geothermal power is really important (Score:4, Insightful)
China's projecting enormous increased demand, and there's no good way to get the energy.
They can bet on coal, which China actually has quite a lot of (though not so much on a per-capita basis), but it's something of an environmental disaster even if it's burned cleanly.
They can bet on nuclear, which presents waste storage problems and relies on finite supplies of fissionable material.
They can bet on wind (not sure of the viability of that, but I'm sure at least SOMEWHERE in China there's good wind), but it takes up a lot of area and apparently isn't so good for birds.
They can bet on solar, which is even worse in terms of taking up space, and is expensive, and only works for half the day.
They can bet on hydroelectric, which displaces people, permanently changes the river, and nukes a whole lot of land. And that enormous lake is going to affect the weather.
There are other options too, of course. And the best solution is a mix of many different technologies. Etc. But the fact is that there's no good solution. China bit the bullet and picked what they hope is the least-bad choice. It had to be done.
Re:Geothermal power is really important (Score:3, Informative)
(1) Most of the good damn (misspelling intentional) sites have already been taken.
(2) The environmental costs. Sorry to have to break this to ya, but this is a huge part of the equation. In the last decade there have been a not insignificant number of damns, mostly smaller ones, that have been removed for environmental reasons.
(3) The economics of damns simply do not work. Especially as the size of the damn increases, no private entity can build
Re:Geothermal power is really important (Score:2)
Re:Geothermal power is really important (Score:2)
Come to beautiful Iceland and enjoy jetskiing on our lovely LAKE OF FIERY LAVA!
It works for me, should be a sure fire thing to do.
But what happens when they start exporting this energy and in 20 years we're depleting our planets natrual heat supplies? Will this help counteract the global warming being caused by well... depleting our other natrual resources?
When will a celebrity champion this cause so it can finally make sense to me?!?
Re:Geothermal power is really important (Score:2)
Sure it will. We eventually tilt the balance and a supervolcano covers the world with a cloud of ash inpenetrable by the sun. When it's all over, humans = oil for the dinosaurs
Re:Geothermal power is really important (Score:2)
Not necessarily. Exploiting geothermal power often releases significant quantities of CO2 and methane, both greenhouse gasses.
Re:Geothermal power is really important (Score:4, Interesting)
i've seen all of these here in brasil, where 90% of the electricity comes from hydroelectrics.
hydropower also has it's environmental price tag, don't let the marketing departament of a utility fool you.
Hydro Safe? (Score:2)
It's generally safe, but I'd hate to be downstream if there's a major earthquake that's stronger than what the dam was designed for.
There's also the terrorist angle, and the war time target angle. A German dam was the target of Allied operations [wikipedia.org] during WWII.Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head (Score:2, Interesting)
OT: Gorillaz (Score:2)
There was only fire.
And then,
nothing...
Surprise (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Surprise (Score:2, Insightful)
FYI, nobody was lowered into a volcano. Nuclear bombs were placed into the volcanoes, 75 million people were placed around the edges of the volcanoes,
and the bombs were subsequently detonated.
The rest of the story is "correct". The disembodied souls (called thetans) were then sucked up into vacuums and forced into cinemas to watch brain-watching movies.
So there you go. I guess you could say that my version of the fake truth is more true th
Apologies to Futurama... (Score:2, Funny)
Leela: OW! Fire hot!
Farnsworth: The professy will help. AAAH! Fire indeed hot.
Re:Apologies to Futurama... (Score:2)
Lesson Learned (Score:5, Funny)
He should have known better than to try to take a volcano god's temperature rectally.
RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
Re:RTFA (Score:2)
"Geologists in Iceland are drilling directly into the heart of a hot volcano."
Hmmm, I'd say that the story involved a volcano, and thus the summary is fairly well on-target.
Re:RTFA (Score:2)
Dr. Evil (Score:2, Funny)
I have a feeling they just want to create an evil lair.
Umm volcanic eduptions anyone? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Umm volcanic eduptions anyone? (Score:2)
Especially when you go messing with it's stability by drilling holes in it and altering it's integrity by drawing energy from it...
Re:Umm volcanic eduptions anyone? (Score:2)
Re:Umm volcanic eduptions anyone? (Score:2, Insightful)
Simple math.
People build a plant there because multiplying the chance of total disaster with the cost of such disaster comes out much smaller than the expected revenue.
Shocking discovery! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Shocking discovery! (Score:2)
You left off the best part. Next day: "Nation drills hole in volcano. Nation disappears. Lots of new lava found."
Rock is a good insulator (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Rock is a good insulator (Score:2, Informative)
But, but... (Score:2)
Cheers.
Re:Thanks! (Score:2)
Water wet (Score:2, Funny)
Due to the malfunctioning instrument, scientists are still unsure about what this salty liquid mixture could be.
Sulfer is good... (Score:2)
Re:Sulfer is good... (Score:2)
Re:Sulfer is good... (Score:2)
Iceland To Drill Hole Into Volcano, to be Renamed (Score:2)
Re:Iceland To Drill Hole Into Volcano, to be Renam (Score:2)
now my xml is all caffiene-y
Re:Iceland To Drill Hole Into Volcano, to be Renam (Score:2)
Lead scientist Dr. Tom Hanks (Score:3, Funny)
"Surprise" easy to explain... (Score:5, Informative)
Supercritical water is pretty exotic stuff in power systems. There are some advanced fossil-fuel power stations that use it, and supercritical nuclear power systems are being developed. They offer higher thermal efficiencies. In Iceland, they might be able to get the same thing going, but with renewable geothermal sources, which would be great, but first they have to tame some pretty extreme conditions in the boreholes.
Re:"Surprise" easy to explain... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:"Surprise" easy to explain... (Score:2)
otherwise you're limited to low power thermoelectrics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_mass_(nuclea r) [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoel ectric_generator [wikipedia.org]
Re:"Surprise" easy to explain... (Score:2)
Take a very clean glass and fill it with water. Then put it into the microwave oven and heat it for a while. If everything done right, the water will not boil visibly and will look calm.
Touch it with anything (NOT YOUR FINGER) and it will burst out into very hot steam.
On the other exteremity, you have materials that you cool and stay liquid until you disrupt them, causing them to crystalize and
Re:"Surprise" easy to explain... (Score:2)
Re:"Surprise" easy to explain... (Score:2)
Re:"Surprise" easy to explain... (Score:3, Informative)
@ atmospheric pressure (14.7psig), water boils at 212F
@ 700psig, water boils at 503F
@ 3000psig, water boils at 695F
and above, 3208psig, you can add as much heat as you want and water won't boil. It's called the critical pressure.
And its the very reason there are so many "steam" accidents at power plants. You hear liquid going through the lines but you don't realize that liquid is under pressure. And once you release the pressure, the liquid instantly
Yellowstone park (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yellowstone park (Score:4, Informative)
It is a good idea, and of less concern than you think. Geothermal energy should be exploited more, but it's uncommon to find a good natural source with a configuration that makes it economically feasible to exploit.
However, your comment about geysers is incorrect. Geysers form under very peculiar circumstances, needing long vertical shafts with interveening chambers of a certain geometry. Under more common conditions you only get hot springs or boiling mud pots. Geysers are spectacular and rare for a reason. Also, Old Faithful hasn't been since an earthquake in 1998. Faithful, that is. It used to go off like regular clockwork, but now it's much more sporatic. In general, geysers often simply stop erupting, most commonly because mineral deposits change their geometry or choke off their vents. Earthquakes, ubiquitous in regions with geysers, are another major factor. Fascinating objects, really, and worth a closer look.
Re:Yellowstone park (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't drill there!!! (Score:2)
Names! (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, I know, the summary's just copied from the BBC article, and the BBC makes the same mistake (and even calls him "Friedleifsson" instead of "Fridleifsson"), but shouldn't Slashdot try to maintain a higher standard of quality than the BBC?
Re:Names! (Score:2)
High Temp Drills (Score:2)
Seriously this just sounds like a bad idea if there is significant population anywhere near there. I'm not a geologist, but I'm not impressed that they were suprised by the thermometer melting either. (Perhaps thats just bad reporting/translation.)
Re:High Temp Drills (Score:3, Informative)
It was in liquid water at the time, which changes things somewhat. Also, whilst drilling into the "volcano", they're only drilling into rock, not into the magma, so the danger isn't what you imagine.
kill two birds with one stone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Scientist != Engineers (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, but I HATE stupid analogies that only help make stupid people reading them, dumber. It would take 350C for the water to boil, but non-boiling 100C water will "boil" and egg just fine. It is a good thing that 340C water isn't hot enough to burn you down there, because it isn't "boiling". Sheesh....
Lets see, pressure of water to boil at 350C is around 1100 psi (guess from extending this chart [engineeringtoolbox.com]). So the question is, can an egg in a shell withstand 1100 psi to even be boiled?
Re:Scientist != Engineers (Score:2)
The borehole mentioned had water in it ... (Score:2)
Elves (Score:2)
Is this safe? HELL NO! (Score:2, Funny)
How do we know that careless drilling into the molten subsurface of the Earth will not cause Iceland to explode in a fiery, flaming, orgy of death that will make Krakatoa look like a birthday candle? How do we know that it won't trigger some subsurface earthquake, and create a tsunami that will destroy the s
Melted thermometer (Score:2, Funny)
I guess he should have bought the thermometer that goes to '11'.....
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088258/ [imdb.com]
Not very exciting, is it (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What....? (Score:2)
Re:Iceland (Score:2)
Actually, the 300,000th Icelander was born not long ago.
Re:Iceland (Score:2)
But seriously, most of our energy comes from dams, which are getting bigge
Re:Iceland (Score:2)
More like *Air ball*
Umm, hello, bjork? (Score:2)
Re:+6 energy and minerals! (Score:2)
Morgan Industries, Ltd.
"Annual Report"
Message to iceland: (Score:2)
Re:Thats really very cool (Score:2)