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Źródło: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20241129-drilling-the-deepest-holes-on-earth-how-to-bore-12-miles-into-our-planets-crust

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The hunt for heat: Drilling the deepest holes on Earth

The hunt for heat: Drilling the deepest holes on Earth

Beneath our feet is an almost limitlessnieograniczony source of energy, but while a few lucky locations have geothermal heatciepło geotermalne close to the surface, the rest of the world will need to dig a lot deeperkopać znacznie głębiej. The challenge is how to get deep enough.

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There are some spots around the world where energy literally bubbles to the surfacewypływa na powierzchnię. In Iceland, home to more than 200 volcanoes and dozens of natural hot springs, tapping intowykorzystywanie this energy isn't hard. Dotted around the country are steaming pools of water, heated by the geothermalgeotermalny fires that burn just below the crusttuż pod skorupą. Boiling jets of water and steam are thrown into the air by geysers.

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The challengewyzwanie is tapping intowykorzystać that energy.

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For other parts of the world to enjoy a part of this geothermal bonanzageotermalna bonanza of clean energy, we need to drill deeperwiercić głębiej to reach the temperatures needed to generate electricity or provide large-scale heating for nearby neighbourhoods.

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With this in mind, some pioneeringnowatorski researchers and companies are turning tozwracają się do new types of drills and drilling techniques to bore some of the deepest holes ever created in the hope of bringingw nadziei na przyniesienie geothermalgeotermalny energy to parts of the world that never thought it was possible.

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Quaise Energy, a spin-offspółka wydzielona from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), for example, are aiming to drill holes as deep as 12 miles (20km) to access temperatures of 500C (932F) or more. To do so, they are turning to a toolzwracają się do narzędzia that draws onopiera się na years of research into nuclear fusionfuzja jądrowa power. "While others are putting shovels in the groundrozpoczynać prace budowlane, we're putting microwaves in the ground for the first time," says the company's co-founder Matt Houde.

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"Millimetre-wavefala milimetrowa drilling is a process that can operate largely independentniezależny of depth," says Houde. "And millimetre-wavefala milimetrowa energy can also transmitprzenosić through dirty, dusty environmentsbrudne, zakurzone środowiska."

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But transferringprzenoszenie the millimetre-wavefala milimetrowa drilling technology from the laboratory to a full-scale drilling operationoperacja wiertnicza na pełną skalę will still be a challenge.

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"They have never been used before in the deep high-pressure subsurface environmentwysokociśnieniowe środowisko podpowierzchniowe," says Woskow. "Changes due to intense energy-matter interactionintensywna interakcja energii i materii applied to drilling require a new learning curvekrzywa uczenia się."

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GA Drilling has also been collaborated with Konstantina Vogiatzaki, associate professor of engineering science at the University of Oxford to adapt advanced mathematics looking at how supercriticalnadkrytyczny fluids can be controlled when tapping deep earth energy sources accessed via plasma drilling. "We worked onpracowaliśmy nad defining the optimumoptymalny combustion system for a full-scale drilling tool, opening new horizonsotwieranie nowych horyzontów in controlling ultra-high pressure combustion through plasma drilling," says Vogiatzaki.

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"Our technology is looking tozamierzać drill up to 11km (6.8 miles) in the future," says geologist and Eavor co-founder Jeanine Vany. "I believe we can make meaningful progressznaczący postęp towards unlockingodblokowanie superhotsupergorący rock in the next three to five years."

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Vany also points outzwraca uwagę that deep geothermalgeotermalna energy doesn't need a lot of space on the surface, which means it could be slotted intowkomponowane urban locationsmiejskie lokalizacje in the future.

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There would be a certain poetrypoezja in that switch – a power station that once ran on a dirty fuel dug outwydobyty of the ground finding new lifeodnaleźć nowe życie in the clean energy revolutionrewolucja czystej energii with an energy source from even deeper underground.

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The question isPytanie brzmi – will they be able to dig deepkopać głęboko enoughwystarczająco?

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* An earlier verison of this article stated the Quaise Energy had hoped to convertprzekształcić an old coal power plant into a geothermalgeotermalny plant. The BBC would like to clarify that this was an idea put forwardprzedstawiony by Paul Woskov and is not something Quaise Energy are currently working on.

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