Reaching the geothermal energy far beneath our feet will require digging further into the Earth's crust than ever before.
Beneath our feet is an almost limitless source of energy, but while a few lucky locations have geothermal heat close to the surface, the rest of the world will need to dig a lot deeper. The challenge is how to get deep enough.
In 2009, for example, a team working on the Iceland Deep Drilling Project inadvertently tapped supercritical conditions when it drilled intointermittently discharged for around two years The technology has grown out of nuclear fusion plasma experiments conducted by Paul Woskov, an engineer at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Centre. Millimetre-wave directed energy has been explored as a way of heating up plasma in nuclear fusion reactors since the 1970s, but a few years ago Woskov hit upon another use for the technology.
Slovakia-based GA Drilling, meanwhile, is exploring a different high-energy drill technology to bore into the Earth's crust. It is using a, based on very short high energy electric discharges that disintegrate rock without causing it to melt. This avoids creating any viscous molten rock, which can be difficult to remove and can stop drill bits penetrating further.
"Our technology is looking to drill up to 11km in the future," says geologist and Eavor co-founder Jeanine Vany. "I believe we can make meaningful progress towards unlocking superhot rock in the next three to five years." The drive to tap deep geothermal energy could also bring new life to ageing fossil fuel power stations as countries look tocould be a way of giving the steam-powered generators a second life and help to speed up the construction of geothermal plants by taking advantage of existing electricity transmission lines. Woskov has identified
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