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Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?

constructionphysics.substack.com

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Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?

#171

Post by SamBam »

iudqnolq wrote: post #141
xg15 wrote: post #134

I 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.

The whole overdue thing is also a logically fallacy. If something has an x% chance of happening per year and it hasn't happened for many years it has an x% change of happening next year, not some greater percentage.

That's not generally the case when dealing with things involving plate tectonics, which often have a build up of pressure over time (tens, hundreds, thousands of years). The tension can slowly build up at a plate boundary before snapping to relieve the tension.

In general with phenomena like this it makes less sense to start from the assumption that the root cause for something is just a random number generator that the Earth's programmer decided to hook up to add variability.

Rather, things in the real world have actual causes, and if they typically happen on the order of 100,000 years apart, there's probably a time-need reason for that.

(There are plenty of phenomena that are just statistics, of course.)

Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?

#172

Post by midoridensha »

wongarsu wrote: post #156
vkou wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, because the way the Romans made concrete wouldn't be suitable for 30 and 70-story buildings.

The way the Romans used concrete to form structures that could be plausibly carved out of raw rock. The dome of the pantheon is an impressive feat of engineering, but the general shape bears similarity to rock caverns. Which is great, because concrete is essentially rock. Meanwhile, the kinds of beams and walls we make out of concrete wouldn't work if carved out of rock, they are only structurally sound because we pu…

What exactly is keeping us from making concrete with salt water, for things like sidewalks?

In the northeast US, sidewalks frequently are in horrible condition after only a few years, because of the salt used in the winter. Sidewalks do not use steel rebar; they're just simple poured concrete. So why can't they make them with a better mixture that doesn't corrode so easily? (I'm guessing the answer is: replacing them frequently makes a lot of money for some concrete company that the town mayor is friends with.)

Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?

#173

Post by aaronmdjones »

iudqnolq wrote: post #141
xg15 wrote: post #134

I 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.

The whole overdue thing is also a logically fallacy. If something has an x% chance of happening per year and it hasn't happened for many years it has an x% change of happening next year, not some greater percentage.

The gambler's fallacy. It's landed on black for the last 20 rolls, it must land on red soon! No, it will land on red with 50% probability, just like the last 20 times.

Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?

#174

Post by midoridensha »

rurp wrote: post #92
elil17 wrote: post #36

Earlier 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…

Not to mention, we know how to build structures that can last 1,000 years because it has already been done before! Using a dubious material in place of a known good one is not the best engineering approach.

Who's "we"? The people who built structures 1000 years ago are all dead (I assume).

Just because some humans somewhere figured out something in the past doesn't mean that humans somewhere else today know how to do it. Lots of knowledge has been lost to time.

Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?

#175

Post by kadoban »

Spooky23 wrote: post #169
elil17 wrote: post #36

Earlier 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…

It’s funny because many buildings exist for 500-3000 years in various forms, and they are all some variant of brick, compressed earth or stone.

Many, many similar buildings did not last though.

It's quite possible that if you want a newly built structure to last that long with the highest probability, you should pick new materials.

Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?

#176

Post by kadoban »

rurp wrote: post #92
elil17 wrote: post #36

Earlier 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…

Not to mention, we know how to build structures that can last 1,000 years because it has already been done before! Using a dubious material in place of a known good one is not the best engineering approach.

We know ways that worked a few times and failed many thousands of times more often.

How many buildings of the same type didn't survive?

If your goal is to use a method that has _any_ chance of success, however small, then the old ways are probably a good bet. If you want the highest chance of success you should probably at least evaluate new methods.

Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?

#177

Post by iudqnolq »

SamBam wrote: post #171
iudqnolq wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole overdue thing is also a logically fallacy. If something has an x% chance of happening per year and it hasn't happened for many years it has an x% change of happening next year, not some greater percentage.

That's not generally the case when dealing with things involving plate tectonics, which often have a build up of pressure over time (tens, hundreds, thousands of years). The tension can slowly build up at a plate boundary before snapping to relieve the tension. In general with phenomena like this it makes less sense to start from the assumption that the root cause for something is just a random number generator that…

Here's one scientist saying that while that logic kinda works for earthquakes volcanoes don't behave that way. https://www.livescience.com/yellowstone-caldera-supervolcano...

Also, even if it would be possible to compute that an earthquake/eruption is overdue I've yet to see it done correctly. Obviously I don't know where the person I'm replying to got their statistic. But if you Google something like "Yellowstone overdue" the results use very poor logic, often just extrapolating from three data points millions of years ago.

Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?

#178

Post by ElevenLathe »

kadoban wrote: post #175
Spooky23 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s funny because many buildings exist for 500-3000 years in various forms, and they are all some variant of brick, compressed earth or stone.

Many, many similar buildings did not last though. It's quite possible that if you want a newly built structure to last that long with the highest probability, you should pick new materials.

Or, if you need 1 intact building in 1000 years, build many many of them now and hope you get lucky with at least one of them.

Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?

#179

Post by monetus »

midoridensha wrote: post #172
wongarsu wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way the Romans used concrete to form structures that could be plausibly carved out of raw rock. The dome of the pantheon is an impressive feat of engineering, but the general shape bears similarity to rock caverns. Which is great, because concrete is essentially rock. Meanwhile, the kinds of beams and walls we make out of concrete wouldn't work if carved out of rock, they are only structurally sound because we pu…

What exactly is keeping us from making concrete with salt water, for things like sidewalks? In the northeast US, sidewalks frequently are in horrible condition after only a few years, because of the salt used in the winter. Sidewalks do not use steel rebar; they're just simple poured concrete. So why can't they make them with a better mixture that doesn't corrode so easily? (I'm guessing the answer is: replacing them…

I think the time it takes for the concrete to set is why, as keeping it dry for a long time would be difficult.

Re: Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?

#180

Post by mikewarot »

smegger001 wrote: post #161
magicalhippo wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will be interesting to see how carbon-fiber reinforced concrete[1] fares in comparison. [1]: https://www.compositesworld.com/news/tprc-research-studies-v...

stainless steel rebar and polymer coated rebar are also options for reinforcing concrete that have a lot of potential, as the issues is moister induced rusting of the rust rebar expanding and cracking the concrete there are multiple solutions that i don't know that we have data on the long term durability of yet. I wonder how one would go about artificially aging something embedded within a block of concrete to test…

It appears that coated rebar just offers a channel for the ingress of water, and thus corrosion, if there is a break anywhere in the coating, like a wick in a lamp.

Basalt fiber rebar might be a better way to go, as it won't oxidize. Studies will be needed to find out if it actually is better in the long run.

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