There are few places on earth as geothermal-friendly as the island nation of Iceland, with 25 percent of its total electricity production coming from geothermal facilities. So it makes sense that Iceland is now the stage for a joint attempt by Statoil and The Iceland Deep Drilling Project to drill the world’s deepest geothermal borehole. The drilling, which began in August, has already reached depths of 4,500 meters, with a stated aim of hitting 5 kilometers before the end of the year. At that depth, the extreme pressure and heat is expected to create ‘supercritical steam’, a substance that is neither liquid nor gas and holds the potential to create 10 times the energy of a conventional geothermal well. But drilling what is being dubbed “the world’s hottest hole” does not come without risks. A similar attempt in 2009 ended in disaster, with the drilling team hitting magma at […]