Reaction: "Unlimited"??? The article is so over-hyped that I wish they could be banned from using the word "scientist".

Ok, we've used the phrase from the subtitle instead.

I think the article was quite fine, compared to the average pop science article.

And by all practical means, savely tapping into the earths heat, would indeed mean unlimited energy for our needs (there is a LOT of heat down there). We also say solar is renewable, even though the sun does not last forever. But within our frame of reference - it does.

I am just sceptical, that we can indeed use that energy savely on a global scale, without causing massive side effects like earth quakes, as the core of the earth is hardly understood. But this is, what this research is about, so I think it is exciting and about time, someone makes that experiment.

> our needs (there is a LOT of heat down there). We also say solar is renewable, even though the sun does not last forever. But within our frame of reference - it does.

Photovoltaic cells surely dont last as long as the sun...

Context is always important. As an EE, I quite often approximate 1s with infinity e.g. this capacitor will have zero charge as t approaches infinity which I can assume is definitely after 1s. Not sure if all EEs think about it that way, but this actually kind of what we are doing.

Cells don't need to, as they can be… "renewed", you might say.

They don't get to be renewed with zero pollution.

All life processes produce waste that is dangerous to that which created it, yet we do not call photosynthesis "non renewable" despite oxygen being toxic to obligate anaerobes.

Likewise while PV has non-zero impact, the impact is sufficiently small and of a nature that basically doesn't matter.

Fossil fuels are about a hundred times more polluting than volcanoes[0][1], so a factor of about one hundred in reduced emissions per unit of useful output compared to setting things on fire takes you down to the environmental impact of one part of geology.

[0] at least the CO2 is, but what matters for PV is everything else except the CO2 because in a world powered by renewables all the energy used in production doesn't produce CO2 in the first place; volcanoes do also release sulphur compounds etc.

[1] there is a certain degree of irony that one of the memes used by climate change deniers is to precisely invert this ratio.

Well, probably nothing we build will. And probably nothing we say will last forever, actually last forever. We still use the word forever and other unprecise terms in common language. I also hate it at times, how unprecise (and wrong) normal language is. But I have given up on the habit of getting mad about it and rather go with the intent and not about the single words.

So no one meant literally indefinite energy here, it was meant, "potentially way more energy, than we currently need". And this is correct.

> I am just skeptical, that we can indeed use that energy safely on a global scale, without causing massive side effects like earth quakes, as the core of the earth is hardly understood

I think we understand the broad numbers pretty well. We're looking to exploit energy and maybe chemistry at a tiny part of the top of many, many deep miles of ever-moving magma. (and all of that thousands of miles from the core).

Compared to our atmosphere - which is frighteningly thin, complex and highly evolved/sensitive - the mantle is primal and utterly massive.

We already caused earthquakes because of fracking and conventional geothermal plants and there is only little energy captured. Allmost everything that is scaled up massivly in reality, comes with its own problems.

Burning some coal?

Not a problem. But allmost every human burning coal on a massive scale? That is bad. Same principle could apply with taking energy from the crust. There are forces at play, we simply do not understand yet.

"The team will also measure the temperature gradient as the solid rock transitions into magma. One of the big surprises of the earlier, unexpected encounter between drill and magma chamber at the site was how rapidly that occurs. “The theory was that you would go through solid rock and into what is called the brittle-ductile boundary, where the rock would be starting to get a little bit softer and more elastic because of the heat,” says Ingólfsson. That was expected to occur over hundreds of metres, but, with Krafla, it was just a few."

>I think the article was quite fine

Yes but based on what you write, you don't know much about geophysics. Sorry to be so blunt but that's just the sort of audience these articles are aimed at. They don't even explain how it would be done, it's like writing an article about how scientists plan to go to Mars in two years. Complete fantasy but the problem is people never do follow-up research on all the bs articles they read on a daily basis, and thus never realize how many lies and exaggerations they're being fed.

"Yes but based on what you write, you don't know much about geophysics."

Never claimed I did. But you apparently claim you know more and that this article and the scientists are BS, but I just read a generic rant from you and nothing concrete.

"it's like writing an article about how scientists plan to go to Mars in two years"

I am not aware of any scientists who did that. If you are talking about Mars One and co., there were no scientists involved.

And this is what I read in the article about what they are planning - and yes to me it sounds like solid basic research. No promise about clean and easy energy in 5 years for everyone, but reason to do basic research that has not been done before:

"“I and some other scientists who deal with volcanoes were just amazed that somebody had actually drilled in the magma, and got samples of magma,” says Eichelberger. It later transpired that similar accidental encounters had happened twice before, once in the Menengai caldera in Kenya and also at a volcano called Kīlauea in Hawaii. This was proof that it was both possible and safe to drill into magma without causing an eruption."

"The first goal of KMT is to drill into the magma and make scientific discoveries. Starting in 2026, the project will break ground close to the original borehole and drill towards the chamber. It will take around two months to get there, progressing laboriously through the volcanic rocks until the drill hits pay dirt. First and foremost, the researchers want to build their fundamental understanding of magma and the chambers that hold it. “We don’t have any direct knowledge of what magma chambers look like, which is crucial in understanding volcanoes of course,” says Paolo Papale at Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Pisa. The little we do know largely comes from studying lava. But lava and magma aren’t the same. A lot of gas is released as molten rock comes to the surface and is then exposed to the atmosphere as lava, both of which change its chemical composition. “Being able to go into the crust and sample magma would give us huge knowledge,” says Ingólfsson."

They say they don't know much, but that they want to find out.

"and thus never realize how many lies and exaggerations they're being fed."

So where are the "lies and exaggerations"?

The author has no expertise in the field. If your claim is that they're a "scientist", please show the geophysics research they've published. I can't find any, instead they seem extremely dedicated to writing questionable articles on any topic imaginable, from vaccines to Amazonian ecology. A lot of the titles of his articles are phrased as questions:

"Do back-to-back disasters show first climate tipping point is upon us?"

"Did monkeys really sail the oceans on floating rafts of vegetation?"

"Can any idiot publish articles with NewScientist?"

The main problem is you'd have to wait until the end of 2026 to find out it never happened as predicted, but by that time you'll already have forgotten about it. The average attention span isn't that long and like I mentioned most people do not save these articles and blacklist publications with a bad track record. There are thousands of nonsense articles from mainstream news orgs like the BBC as well as pop-science magazines that promised all sorts of nonsense to happen by year x, which unsurprisingly didn't end up happening.

At what point would it be fair to say they're publishing misinformation?

"The author has no expertise in the field. If your claim is that they're a "scientist""

Are you intentionally missreading me? I never claimed that the author of the article is a scientist. I said the article is quite ok compared to the average pop science article, which is indeed often clickbait. But here there were no promises, just the very correct claim, that there is great potential.

And the scientist the article is talking about, John Eichelberger, for sure has publications:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=XtohsgUAAAAJ

So, I am asking again, can you point out one single lie or exaggeration in this concrete article? Because I cannot find one, but like I said, I am not an expert. So if you know more, please share that knowledge.

Someone accidentally drilling into a dyke does not mean they'll be able to bore into a magma chamber within the next 2 years. Those are completely different ballparks, there's a reason the latter has never happened, because the high temperatures make it very difficult on a technical level. I mentioned Mars because it's a similar claim we've heard in the media and from various projects for years now. Of course it's possible, anything's possible. Now show me how concretely it will be done, it's on those making the claim to provide the evidence and I'm not sure if you noticed but the article contains no technical details. After reading it, can you explain how they will drill into the chamber?

We can't be sure if Eichelberger has actually said everything implied in the article or if he's quoted out of context, but the “no geophysical technique has been shown to satisfactorily locate magma reservoirs” quote for example is misleading. Of course nothing gives us 100% certainty, they're educated guesses based on seismic data and such. But if they couldn't find giant liquid chambers in relatively shallow depths, the entire field of geophysics would be rather useless. Obviously that isn't true. If there's one thing they can locate, it's magma chambers, conventional oil reservoirs, and such. Otherwise they'd just randomly drill all over the place. Which the accidental dyke drilling shows they do when it comes to higher resolution details.

Btw Eichelberger is both the founder as well as a board member of the project looking to drill and currently seeking millions of dollars of funding for it. Such an unbiased source and what a coincidence that just as they need money, Mr. Lawton comes out with an article hyping up the idea.

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/icelandic-research-c...

I made the mistake of reading a whole New Scientist magazine once, a few years ago.

Thoroughly disappointing. Sensationalist and shallow.

Does not seem to be written for people with actual curiosity. I do not know who it is written for, although I presume they have their demographic figured out. That might be the most disappointing part.

Thirty years I was a subscriber and it was actually decent. After a few years of subscribing I noticed a pattern of recurring articles and stopped. I considered subscribing again a couple of years ago but it was so obviously not serious science, only sensationalism, that I gave up.

for anyone interested in reading the article behind the paywall:

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sca_esv=595707...

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