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

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

#61

Post by ben_w »

Maxion wrote: post #48
pacificmint wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus you’d take a great step towards solving our energy problems.

We'll except the fact that deep geothermal plants are completely theoretic as a means of production - the final cost of power is a big ???. Most people want cheap power. Anything over around 20 cents a kWh makes it uncompetitive to fossile equivalents (e.g. wood / oil / gas heating).

Not only does it already exist, it's cheap enough that Kenya has some and wants more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_Kenya

Judging by the price tag of 9.1 Ksh/kWh listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Kenya (and looking up historical exchange rates because of the date of the link and their persistent inflation), that's about 0.085-0.090 USD/kWh.

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

#62

Post by onetimeuse92304 »

chongli wrote: post #5

It’s a shame this was written earlier this year. In Iceland there’s an ongoing magma intrusion event near (and under) the town of Grindavik. There also happens to be a geothermal power plant not far from the town. The progression of this magma intrusion, particularly beneath the power plant itself, seems like it should provide a valuable case study to test the idea presented by this article. If there ends up being an…

I think the puny icelandic power plant is no match for the forces that are at play there.

Also remember it takes time for heat to transfer through so much rock, so a plant would have to continuously remove energy for a very long time to reach the places where it actually matters.

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

#63

Post by kabouseng »

roenxi wrote: post #42
fbdab103 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big fan of WH40k as the exemplar of massive scale. This article[0] defines a super volcano as >The size of volcanic eruptions can be expressed by the volume or mass of magma released (table 1), with super-eruptions yielding in excess of 450 km3, or more than 1×10^15 kg, of magma (Sparks et al. 2005). Wikipedia says the Empire State Building has a volume of 1e6 m3 or 0.001 km3. So the eruption would be equivalent to a…

Those numbers aren't that large. They aren't small in anyone's estimation, but the Empire State Building is a lot less than the amount of material a motivated earthmoving company can get through in a year. There'd be some interesting technical challenges tearing down Everest, but it is conceivable. The part that requires creative thinking is why it would be worth it spending that much money.

Except that volume gets released with an eruption, not over a year...Imagine 5 mount everests lifting up into the air and coming down at the same time.

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

#64

Post by clarionbell »

fbdab103 wrote: post #18
senectus1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the SCALE required to ease the pressures would be absurd. Warhammer 40k sort of absurd. Having said that, It should be considered to take advantages of clean energy.

Big fan of WH40k as the exemplar of massive scale. This article[0] defines a super volcano as >The size of volcanic eruptions can be expressed by the volume or mass of magma released (table 1), with super-eruptions yielding in excess of 450 km3, or more than 1×10^15 kg, of magma (Sparks et al. 2005). Wikipedia says the Empire State Building has a volume of 1e6 m3 or 0.001 km3. So the eruption would be equivalent to a…

That's exterminatus scale of explosion. Well, one cyclonic torpedo maybe.

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

#65

Post by iwontberude »

vlovich123 wrote: post #57
thorncorona wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California is 50c/kwh…

According to https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/archive/2021/ the average retail price for California was 20..

sounds great but anyone living downtown is paying over $0.50/kWh

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

#66

Post by Cthulhu_ »

ehnto wrote: post #11
senectus1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the SCALE required to ease the pressures would be absurd. Warhammer 40k sort of absurd. Having said that, It should be considered to take advantages of clean energy.

I don't have a sense of the scale you are talking, but I would love to see more megaprojects. Truly mega. When we aren't getting in our own way, humans do some pretty awesome stuff.

Have you heard of The Line? It's going to be a 500m high, 200m wide, 170 km long linear city / megastructure housing 9 million people; real science fiction stuff, but construction is underway with phase 1 ready by 2030: https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/theline

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

#67

Post by easytiger »

littlestymaar wrote: post #59
jtriangle wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not like a balloon, an eruption isn't the earth popping, it's an upheaval from the mantle eventually surfacing through a weak spot that causes it.

Given that eruptions are primarily driven by the ejection of gas , the “earth popping like a balloon” analogy is more apt than you think it is (even if it's not exactly like that, and more like opening a shaken bottle of Champaign after you won the Grand Prix).

Are they "primarily driven by the ejection of gas" or more accurately preceded by gas and steam as the magma itself is gas rich and thermo and fluid dynamics dictate the gas will be at the vanguard of the breach?

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

#68

Post by habinero »

roenxi wrote: post #56
hutzlibu wrote: post #2

"Regardless of the specifics of the details, in the abstract, such a scheme is in some sense, possible. How should we consider it? On the one hand, building a huge geothermal power station at Yellowstone would generate a large amount of (potentially cheap) electric power while simultaneously reducing a catastrophic risk. " "On the other hand, in many ways Yellowstone is a particularly bad place to try to build such a…

One option would be to set up a big industrial district. Call it Shenzhen II. Cheap power and some industrialist-friendly tax laws and maybe the US could keep pace with the Chinese. People'd start building and finding uses for that power extremely quickly. I find it very much laugh-or-you'd-cry that the US would rather have Yellowstone winding up for a big one than allow geothermal power projects near a national park…

It's not a case of "would they rather", that's ridiculous.

It's flat out not feasible to do and wouldn't work even if we did. The scale and forces are far too massive for us to do anything about it.

It's like saying "why don't they stop earthquakes by removing earthquake faults".

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

#69

Post by habinero »

fooker wrote: post #54
jtriangle wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not like a balloon, an eruption isn't the earth popping, it's an upheaval from the mantle eventually surfacing through a weak spot that causes it.

Upheaval is the load bearing word in your sentence. This is what causes the extreme pressures. Anything to relieve the pressure can, by definition, cause an eruption if there is an inadvertent feedback loop.

I've seen several professional geologists answer this question, and no, really, volcanos don't work that way.

For one, the scale is way, way too big. It's like stabbing an elephant with a needle and expecting it to bleed out.

Also, the dangerous type of magma is extremely viscous and gas-rich. It doesn't flow like Hawaiian lava does.

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

#70

Post by quickthrower2 »

iwontberude wrote: post #65
vlovich123 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/archive/2021/ the average retail price for California was 20..

sounds great but anyone living downtown is paying over $0.50/kWh

Solar must be damn attractive
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