Geothermal power study at McMurdo

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32707, 9 September 1971, Page 1

Geothermal power study at McMurdo

Geothermal steam that could provide Scott Base and McMurdo Station with all their power requirements more economically than ever before could well be the result of a threenation programme of deep drilling to be carried out in the Antarctic over the next three years.

Scientists from New Zealand, Japan and the United States will take part in the investigation, which will examine sub. surface geological and geophysical features on and near Ross Island in McMurdo Sound. Limited drilling will also be undertaken in the icefree dry valleys. In late November the chairman of the Japan Polar Research Association (Dr M. Muryama), the head of the Office of Polar Programmes for the United States National Science Foundation (Mr P. M. Smith), and the superintendent of the Antarctic division of the New Zealand Department of Scienti-

fic and Industrial Research (Mr R. B. Thomson) will meet to discuss the project. The coming summer will see mainly reconnaissance work carried out: the drilling programme is not due to start until the summer of 1972.

Among the drilling priorities, from New Zealand’s point of view, would be an investigation of the lower slopes of the 13,200 ft Mount Erebus, said Mr Thomson. “Little scientific study has been made here over the years, and as we are camped on a live volcano we feel that the time has come to learn more about it,” said Mr Thomson. “Scott Base, for example, is built on rock but we are not sure just how thick it is. It might turn out to be part of a tongue of lava which! is sitting on ice. So we hope that the deep drilling programme will determine this,” he said. Mr Thomson said it was hoped that scientists would locate a region on the volcano whence steam could be tapped and controlled to produce geothermal powersuch as had been successfully done in New Zealand at Wairakei. If such an underground reservoir of steam could be located it might easily provide all the heating and power requirements of Scott Base and McMurdo Station. 1 There would be consider-: able initial expense in the installation of generating equipment but this was ex-

pected to be amply recovered from savings on conventional fuel. It 1 so happens that the Americans are concerned at the present time about the cost of maintaining their nuclear power plant on the slopes of Observation Hill; According to the commander of the United States Navy Antarctic support force (Rear-Admiral L. B. McCuddin) a study of the cost of that plant is to be made this summer.