Geothermal Plant in Hawaii Accidentally Strikes Liquid Hot Magma
Although this event occurred in 2005 at Ormat Technology’s Puna Geothermal Plant on the Big Island of Hawaii, scientists only recently released a full analysis of the nature of this discovery and the events surrounding it.
Basically, engineers at the Puna Plant, which opened in 1993 and produces 30 MW of commercial power, were drilling a standard injection hole into the earth when, at a depth of 2488 m, they hit a pool of dacite magma. At this point, the magma flowed 5.5 m up the wellbore (which is 26 cm diameter) where it cooled and solidified. Engineers attempted to drill more holes in that vicinity– all of which also struck magma.
It is believed that this is the first time live magma has been accidentally encountered by drillers. The temperature of the dacite magma (which is very uncommon in Hawaiian geology) was estimated to be around 1050°C (1922°F), which would make this geothermal operation possibly the hottest commercial well ever drilled. Traditionally, geothermal well holes reach temperatures of around 500°C.
The Puna Plant sits on the geologically active Kilauea Lower East Rift Zone that has seen lava flows as recently as 1955, 1960, and 1972. Although geothermal resources are mostly limited to the Big Island (as it is volcanically active), it is estimated that geothermal could actually provide 100% of the energy demand there. Clean energy has been a hot topic for Hawaii lately, given the recent announcement that Better Place would be building-up electric car infrastructure there– which (of course) only makes real sense if the electricity it is using is clean.
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Comments
2 Comments on Geothermal Plant in Hawaii Accidentally Strikes Liquid Hot Magma
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MoronObserver on
Tue, 6th Jan 2009 1:21 pm
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Steven James on
Tue, 6th Jan 2009 8:56 pm
I was hoping to hear about a geyser of magma that exploded upwards like a strike at an old-fashioned oil derrick. Ideally this would have resulted in a new volcano that erupted out of control, killing everything for miles around. Alas, we get 40 feet of upwelling.
I clicked through to the research you linked above and saw this:
“The drill bit, when recovered at the surface, was missing several carbide insert teeth. Presumably the inserts were plucked cleanly from their sintered cone sockets due to differential thermal expansion under extreme heat conditions.”
Whoa.
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