[flagged]
Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
41–50 of 191 posts
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#42[deleted]
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#43"If heat could be bled off of the magma chambers, cooling and solidifying them, not only would that stop the volcano from erupting..." Where does the confidence to make this claim come from? I can imagine that the consequence of this might actually just be strengthening the "barrier" the magma has to erupt through, and when it finally builds up enough energy to do that, it'll be stronger in proportion to how strong t…
Yeah not to mention the construction of the plant itself! I wouldn’t want to be operating the drill that punctures the magma chambers! I’m optimistic. If we spent less time engineering society and more time engineering the earth, I think we’d all be a lot happier.
> I wouldn’t want to be operating the drill that punctures the magma chambers!
Even if that happens, I wonder if the hole would be so deep, that the magma cools and solidifies in the borehole before it reaches the surface. Similar to how pristine sub-glacial Antarctic lakes are sampled by drilling straight into them (!) and letting the water flow up into the hole, where it freezes.
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-just-drilled-in...
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#44The article makes the common (and grating) error of conflating power (1.5 gigawatts) and energy (power over time). Put another way, "1.5 gigawatts" does not in any way describe a rate. Do they mean 1.5 gigawatts per hour? or per day? or per year? I'm referring to this section: ...the rate that energy builds below the volcano is only around 1.5 gigawatts - less heat than a typical power plant sheds. Yellowstone curren…
[deleted]
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#45"If heat could be bled off of the magma chambers, cooling and solidifying them, not only would that stop the volcano from erupting..." Where does the confidence to make this claim come from? I can imagine that the consequence of this might actually just be strengthening the "barrier" the magma has to erupt through, and when it finally builds up enough energy to do that, it'll be stronger in proportion to how strong t…
The linked JPL proposal is exploratory and, while it has a more serious engineering perspective, it does not have "confidence". https://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov/sites/default/file...
The USGS is very unconvinced. https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/can-we-drill-yellowstone-stop-it-e...
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#46that's interesting. Could that be a use case for microwave drilling?
e.g. with https://www.quaise.energy
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#47Only by reading this article's title, without knowing its actual content, two memes come in mind: the "c'mon do something" and the "no touchy!".
Am I allowed to be scared, let alone petrified just by thinking anything around dealing with a super-volcano?
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#48Dear Prof. Hand-Wave, Please tell me about your heat sink - the one that can soak up the heat from a few hundred cubic km or so of molten lava. Without major ill effects. On a reasonable budget. Asking for a friend.
[deleted]
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#49Dear Prof. Hand-Wave, Please tell me about your heat sink - the one that can soak up the heat from a few hundred cubic km or so of molten lava. Without major ill effects. On a reasonable budget. Asking for a friend.
This was linked from the article. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096014812... Along with the JPL's proposal which gets into the crust dynamics. https://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov/sites/default/file...
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#50"If heat could be bled off of the magma chambers, cooling and solidifying them, not only would that stop the volcano from erupting..." Where does the confidence to make this claim come from? I can imagine that the consequence of this might actually just be strengthening the "barrier" the magma has to erupt through, and when it finally builds up enough energy to do that, it'll be stronger in proportion to how strong t…
> I can imagine that the consequence of this might actually just be strengthening the "barrier" the magma has to erupt through, and when it finally builds up enough energy to do that, it'll be stronger in proportion to how strong the newly cooled down barrier had become? Certainly the movie version has the one rogue scientist working late into the night redoing the calculations and realizing that as soon as the plant…
> In real life, I have no idea how this kind of thing gets analyzed, and what kind of uncertainty is involved.
This is similar to what I was trying to get across -- how do we know something this complicated will have only the intended effect that the author is describing?
The comparison to reflectors in space to address climate concerns is a great one - something where a first pass/ back of the envelope makes it seem interesting, but any amount of detail added reveals that we'd have no clue what would happen