101–110 of 114 posts
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I live near Yellowstone (as in going there, seeing the sights and going home is a day trip with time to spare) and always tell people that we're the lucky ones. If the Yellowstone volcano ever goes in our lifetime we'll die instantly. If it goes off, most of the populated world is going to die anyways, might as well be the first.
Serious question: is your house insured against volcano?
Seems like it might be prudent to first try extracting 35% of the heat from a volcano smaller than the Yellowstone Caldera. We might learn some things, and if we get it wrong the consequences don't result in widespread starvation. That said, it's obvious that this plan is just the start of serious investigation into how we can engineer mitigations to an eruption at Yellowstone. I would be interested in seeing a model…
I don't think we dare trigger any eruptions at Yellowstone, ever ever ever. My understanding is that there's a positive feedback loop that kicks in; there's just no way to know the whole thing won't go up. But the plan of drilling into the bottom of the magma chamber from the sides sounds like it might be safe enough. The pressure is much higher there, which ironically is safer because it keeps dissolved gases from c…
I was just in Yellowstone so much is still unknown about it and the more I read about it and saw the more afraid I became of it. At one point we saw a crater the size of a city block it was a geyser then in the 80s exploded and killed a few people. I got to thinking "WTF are we doing here this thing is going to blow at any time!?"
In Bill Bryson's book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, he talks about the dangers of Yellowstone and how catastrophic the eruption would be, however, he also points out that these potential eruptions are often preceded by a period of elevated signs of volcanic activity, which as I understand, Yellowstone is not currently experiencing. Of course, geological timelines are impossible to predict, but until I read t…
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I don't know what your definition of infinite is but that doesn't sound right at all, and further your argument applies equally to all existential risks, so it doesn't really tell you that you shouldn't work on this particular one.
"Instead, we need to build resilience into our society" is the key here, many many things can happen.
It's just a different objective, although they overlap.
Sounds like we just need to convince some high tech billionaire that they need a supervillain lair powered by geothermal energy. Maybe power a data center or something. Put that excess heat to good use :-)
This just looks like an attempt to get geothermal energy from Yellowstone. The 6GW power getting out of the ground now is really nothing compared to the energy that's down there. Thermal conduction and fluid transport are what allows the energy to the surface. Adding geo-thermal power generation would increase energy dissipated but would do little to actually change the geologic situation. I suspect if you asked powe…
Indeed, as it seems NASA's best capability is to 'get free money from the government' (not volcano nor space exploration as many would expect).
It's more fair to judge NASA's space capabilities against all the other groups that take gov't money. They are much better at space than, say, the Department of Labor.
Just because there are recent, private entrants, who built much of their technology on the foundation work done by NASA, does not mean NASA should be mocked in this manner.
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Most grains can be stored for years under the right conditions. Sure the quality will decline over that time, but given we are feeding a large amount of grain to livestock this decline is manageable. Even having a single years buffer would be very worthwhile. As I mentioned in the OP if we have a catastrophic event in the northern summer the poor are in serious trouble.
The problem is the food you are storing is constantly going bad. So you need to recreate the entire massive food stockpile every year or so, in order to have it ready when the time comes. We'd have to find a way to efficiently cycle food through the stockpile and back to consumers before it became useless. But I doubt consumers are going to be lining up to buy old food. The food would be expensive to buy fresh, then…
Once the stockpile was established and the process of cycling it set up, then the cost should be relatively minor.
More importantly what is the alternative? Let everyone starve?
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So releasing the pressure will cause the dissolved gasses to come out of solution, triggering the actual eruption? Sounds dangerous.
There should be a way to pull energy out of it without risking releasing the current pressure. The hot solid rocks above are pretty good at transferring heat, and you only need to drill part of the way into them. A very small hole can move a lot of energy.
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Serious question: is your house insured against volcano?
No, I'm pretty sure there would be no one to make a claim even if they were.