Narrator: But what they could not have known at the time was that activation of the geothermal power plant would subtly perturb the magma flows in such a way as to hasten the supervolcanp's eruption. [just an alternative take, not based on any firm facts]
Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
131–140 of 191 posts
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#132Just so everyone knows, the whole "Yellowstone is a supervolcano that could erupt any minute and cause cataclysmic effects on the planet" is just not true. It was made up for TV "documentaries". Yellowstone does not pose any real threat to society at large. Volcanologists are practically unanimous in that belief. See this video for more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypn3Fe_PLts
why did what we would presume are fairly professional level engineers and scientists at JPL (at least not working for TV "documentaries") write a whole paper called "DEFENDING HUMAN CIVILIZATION FROM SUPERVOLCANIC ERUPTIONS" which has all of its emphasis on Yellowstone? https://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov/sites/default/file...
Kinda weird to just go for an argument of authority huh? I'd recommend watching the video for a non-authority based series of arguments based on multiple sources and a lot of data.
Anyway, the reason they wrote that paper is probably because they are talking about extreme hypotheticals themselves. Notice how their comparison is that it's twice as likely as a 2km asteroid impact, which are once in every few million year events. So we're still dealing with something extremely unlikely to occur in our lifetimes.
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#133"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 have a lot of skepticism about anything I read from constructionphysics.substack.com. I'm a mechanical engineer, not a civil engineer, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but it reads like it's written by someone who does not have a solid understanding of engineering fundamentals. For example, they suggested in their "How to design a house to last for 1,000 years" series that you'd want to build such a house o…
I read it as meaning at least 1,000 years. Modern humans started living in caves in Europe about 100,000 years ago, and their cave-houses still exist. So, if your house is also a cave you should be able to get at least that.
If they want the house to last for exactly 1,000 years then I'm not sure what to tell you. Maybe something based on the milleneum clock? Or explosives and a really long fuse, Wile E Coyote style?
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#134I found the whole issue of Yellowstone being "overdue" becoming significantly less urgent when I learned that by that definition, it was already overdue back when humans were still hunting wooly mammoths with sticks.
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a lot of skepticism about anything I read from constructionphysics.substack.com. I'm a mechanical engineer, not a civil engineer, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but it reads like it's written by someone who does not have a solid understanding of engineering fundamentals. For example, they suggested in their "How to design a house to last for 1,000 years" series that you'd want to build such a house o…
I read it as meaning at least 1,000 years. Modern humans started living in caves in Europe about 100,000 years ago, and their cave-houses still exist. So, if your house is also a cave you should be able to get at least that. If they want the house to last for exactly 1,000 years then I'm not sure what to tell you. Maybe something based on the milleneum clock? Or explosives and a really long fuse, Wile E Coyote style?
I read it the same way?
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fiberglass/FRP is an interesting one. I believe the limiting factor there would be that the polymers used would slowly degrade/weaken over time due to chemical aging. Fiberglass boats last up to 50 years but that is in a harsher environment - not sure how long you could go on land. Perhaps some polymers could be formulated to last that long, I'm not sure.
UV from sunlight degrades fiberglass/FRP over time. I believe that boats are painted to protect them from this, and need to be recoated periodically because the uv sunlight will degrade the paint eventually, also.
Seems unlikely that you’d have a reliable source of paint for 1000 years, which might be the limiting factor.
But there’s always some rate of chain scission, even in the absence of UV/water/whatever. I just have no idea whether that has a meaningful impact on material properties over 1000 years.
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#137"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…
Good comment, but had to automatically downvote because of the use of “lol”.
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#138"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.
Or exactly the other way around.
Without "engineering society" we'd still live in tribes killing each other at first sight. We have reduced that substantially. Some societies are a bit behind (like allowing lethal military-grade weapons at home), some are further advanced. Overall, it seems a good idea to use our intellect to advance societies and we've come a long way from the dark ages.
Our earth engineering has come so far that with the exception of a few national parks and reserves, we've used every little corner to cut off and kill everything that existed on it and turned it into less-and-less usable farmland. A few areas are cities or golf courses or transportation highways, the rest are terrible monocultures or their next stage: deserts. We've extinguished more species than we know and of those that we have not, we have brought lots to close to it. 95% of all fish are dead. Sea levels are rising rapidly. Large areas have water shortages. We need less "earth engineering", not more of it.
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#139"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…
Well, consider the fact that the vast majority of the earth surface, in fact, almost the entire surface of the earth is entirely volcano-less. Look under your feet -- no volcanoes! Move over a couple of steps and look again -- no volcanoes. So it is safe to say that a certain thickness of rock would serve enough to prevent volcanoes. You just have to provide enough cooling to ensure a sufficiently thick layer of magm…
That's not how this works. Plate tectonics won't stop if you cool down things a little bit. The amount of cooling you'd need to do amount to have that stuff stop is comparable to creating forests and oceans on mars. Not gonna happen, we'll kill off humankind before that.
Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
#140Just so everyone knows, the whole "Yellowstone is a supervolcano that could erupt any minute and cause cataclysmic effects on the planet" is just not true. It was made up for TV "documentaries". Yellowstone does not pose any real threat to society at large. Volcanologists are practically unanimous in that belief. See this video for more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypn3Fe_PLts
why did what we would presume are fairly professional level engineers and scientists at JPL (at least not working for TV "documentaries") write a whole paper called "DEFENDING HUMAN CIVILIZATION FROM SUPERVOLCANIC ERUPTIONS" which has all of its emphasis on Yellowstone? https://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov/sites/default/file...
> why
Because that's what they got their grant money for and what they want more grant money for.