Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a geothermal power plant?(construction-physics.com)
construction-physics.com
Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a geothermal power plant?
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/could-we-stop-yellowstone-from-erupting
137 comments
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.
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.
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.
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 at least 450,000 Empire State Buildings worth of magma. Mt Everest is some 90km3, so only 5 Mt Everest equivalents.
These amounts are too big for me to comprehend, but yeah. Going to need a bigger boat.
[0] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsta.200...
>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 at least 450,000 Empire State Buildings worth of magma. Mt Everest is some 90km3, so only 5 Mt Everest equivalents.
These amounts are too big for me to comprehend, but yeah. Going to need a bigger boat.
[0] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsta.200...
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.
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.
But how many school buses is that?
That's exterminatus scale of explosion. Well, one cyclonic torpedo maybe.
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.
I don't. The reason is that even though we are probably capable of doing so we lack the responsibility required to do this without the chance of massive negative side effects. Every time we've upped the scale in our abilities it has only resulted in more damage, not quite balanced out by more progress. This is a real problem: we can get ourselves into the kind of trouble that we don't seem to be able to get ourselves out of. We never stop and say 'this is enough', we always take the next step, create a new level of problems that then requires yet another level of innovation to control it and so on.
It's the sorcerers apprentice, but a weird variation on it. Just supposed that what the GP says is possible and doable: what guarantees do we have that we fully understand the system we are messing with? How much risk are we willing to take? Who are the stakeholders in these risks?
Without answers to all of these questions we run the real risk of biting off more than we can collectively chew and if and when we do there won't be an 'undo' button to press. Well, technically will have pressed it, but quite possible on a time-scale that we didn't quite envision.
I've seen the most stupid proposals of the kind that you are suggesting: PNE's ('Peaceful Nuclear Explosions') on a scale never dreamed of before to remake the face of the Earth, create new watersheds and so on. And to incidentally put an amount of radiation into the atmosphere that would be absolutely unparalleled. The fact that we can do these things doesn't mean that we automatically have to do these things.
I keep thinking about the discovery of nuclear power: what if we hadn't? Would that be such a huge problem or would we simply have found other, better ways of providing ourselves with power? And if we did, what would be the short term, mid term and long term consequences of doing so? Because the energy stored in the core of the Earth is the ultimate form of fossil energy: between gravity and plate tectonics life had a way of escaping the oceans and without that we'd be fish, mammals in the ocean at best. Good luck with that electronics project you were working on in that environment.
It's tricky: we have one Earth. Any decision that irrevocably removes something from that Earth carries a price tag the value of which may not be visible for a long time to come, so caution would seem to be the best way forward, even if that isn't our nature. Our nature is just to act and then to pass the buck to the next generation.
It's the sorcerers apprentice, but a weird variation on it. Just supposed that what the GP says is possible and doable: what guarantees do we have that we fully understand the system we are messing with? How much risk are we willing to take? Who are the stakeholders in these risks?
Without answers to all of these questions we run the real risk of biting off more than we can collectively chew and if and when we do there won't be an 'undo' button to press. Well, technically will have pressed it, but quite possible on a time-scale that we didn't quite envision.
I've seen the most stupid proposals of the kind that you are suggesting: PNE's ('Peaceful Nuclear Explosions') on a scale never dreamed of before to remake the face of the Earth, create new watersheds and so on. And to incidentally put an amount of radiation into the atmosphere that would be absolutely unparalleled. The fact that we can do these things doesn't mean that we automatically have to do these things.
I keep thinking about the discovery of nuclear power: what if we hadn't? Would that be such a huge problem or would we simply have found other, better ways of providing ourselves with power? And if we did, what would be the short term, mid term and long term consequences of doing so? Because the energy stored in the core of the Earth is the ultimate form of fossil energy: between gravity and plate tectonics life had a way of escaping the oceans and without that we'd be fish, mammals in the ocean at best. Good luck with that electronics project you were working on in that environment.
It's tricky: we have one Earth. Any decision that irrevocably removes something from that Earth carries a price tag the value of which may not be visible for a long time to come, so caution would seem to be the best way forward, even if that isn't our nature. Our nature is just to act and then to pass the buck to the next generation.
The problem is that inaction is also fraught.
"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."
Some time ago scientists were concerned that the Earth was headed into another ice age. Then we started burning all of this carbon, so that's not happening anymore. Great, catastrophe averted. Now we're burning way too much and going hard the other way.
Damn it.
Okay, so the status quo is no good, maybe we should build a whole bunch of nuclear plants so we can stop burning coal. What could possibly go wrong?
Or we could do this geothermal thing.
Indolence is fatal. Pick your poison.
"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."
Some time ago scientists were concerned that the Earth was headed into another ice age. Then we started burning all of this carbon, so that's not happening anymore. Great, catastrophe averted. Now we're burning way too much and going hard the other way.
Damn it.
Okay, so the status quo is no good, maybe we should build a whole bunch of nuclear plants so we can stop burning coal. What could possibly go wrong?
Or we could do this geothermal thing.
Indolence is fatal. Pick your poison.
That's a fair point, however, action has often much clearer short term consequences than inaction, and the consequences of inaction can be studied at leisure because action always is still an option. But once you've done your action thingy you can't go back to what it was like before.
That isn't really a distinction. Prolonged inaction when action is warranted can have consequences that are just as irreversible.
Perhaps surprisingly I do agree with you, I often talk about civilization having a Peak Comfort and that we should try to find contentment and sustainability over driving for progress toward some yet defined goal.
Two things come into the conversation though, while some of us have probably hit peak comfort it is not exactly universal. The second is we still haven't solved the energy problem, and it is us getting in our own way that is doing it. A megaproject of some kind can kind of sublime the status quo and make grand leaps forward in spite of ourselves. Maybe not a geothermal plant harnessing the earths's subterranean magma, but truly massive renewables installations or just actually doing nuclear power at last.
I hear what you are saying though. I would love to see some kind of utopian near future megaprojects solve the energy problem, but that is with the assumption that we did our homework, and our current track record is pretty bleak in that regard.
Two things come into the conversation though, while some of us have probably hit peak comfort it is not exactly universal. The second is we still haven't solved the energy problem, and it is us getting in our own way that is doing it. A megaproject of some kind can kind of sublime the status quo and make grand leaps forward in spite of ourselves. Maybe not a geothermal plant harnessing the earths's subterranean magma, but truly massive renewables installations or just actually doing nuclear power at last.
I hear what you are saying though. I would love to see some kind of utopian near future megaprojects solve the energy problem, but that is with the assumption that we did our homework, and our current track record is pretty bleak in that regard.
That's all agreed on, but in principle the energy problem is solved: we're quite literally bathing in energy for 12 hours every day for half the planet on average. We just suck at collecting that energy. And that is a problem that you might be able to solve without such massive environmental impact as what we've seen so far. More so if we focus on conservation first, so those 'massive renewables installations' are exactly where it is at in my book.
And your point that comfort (and even food) isn't universal is also well taken, if anything that should be our first order of battle: to establish some stable and sustainable quality of life and then to go about ensuring that everybody has access to that level. Of course our political and financial institutions are not well geared towards such solutions and that is where most of the challenge will come from. On a technical level I don't think that's unsolvable if you focus on quality and sustainability.
And your point that comfort (and even food) isn't universal is also well taken, if anything that should be our first order of battle: to establish some stable and sustainable quality of life and then to go about ensuring that everybody has access to that level. Of course our political and financial institutions are not well geared towards such solutions and that is where most of the challenge will come from. On a technical level I don't think that's unsolvable if you focus on quality and sustainability.
I agree with everything except your conclusion. Even if we could resist our fundamental nature how do we know that our current values are more correct than the evolutionary forces that have kept us alive for millions of years?
We keep getting in to trouble and getting away with it. What if whoever didn’t get into trouble also didn’t survive.
We keep getting in to trouble and getting away with it. What if whoever didn’t get into trouble also didn’t survive.
I invite you to find yourself a copy of any or all of
The Control of Nature by John McPhee,
A River Lost by Blaine Harden, and
Marc Reisner's books Cadillac Desert and A Dangerous Place.
I like a mega challenge that is manageable because everyone can do their tiny part. Like the Justdiggit project [0], on a mission to regreening Africa and cooling down the planet. All one needs is a shovel and knowledge how to dig shallow holes with a ridge to avoid rainwaters flushing furtile topsoil away, and store water for plants to grow in the dry season.
[0] https://justdiggit.org/
[0] https://justdiggit.org/
Do you know if they have anything on the following? Sahara is the source of minerals for the Amazon rainforest (winds carry fine sand over the Atlantic), "regreening" Africa is likely to stop this transfer, leading to soil exhaustion in Amazon.
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
Unfortunately, yes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33146820
> At this rate, the energy of the next eruption would be drained after about 16,000 years, and in less than 50,000 years the magma chamber would be cooled completely.
Iceland's event is much smaller, but we're not talking about the sort of thing that you can implement in a year.
Iceland's event is much smaller, but we're not talking about the sort of thing that you can implement in a year.
half jokingly I thought "so we just need 160 power plants to bring it down to 100 years"
In the article it's said the proposal already included 160 plants in a big ring around yellowstone, resulting in the 16,000 years figure.
So to get it down to 100 years you'd need 160^2 = 25,600 geothermal plants.
Perfectly reasonable, let's do it.
So to get it down to 100 years you'd need 160^2 = 25,600 geothermal plants.
Perfectly reasonable, let's do it.
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).
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.
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.
iirc it works well in Kenya because the thermal gradient is really steep and the heat is right near the surface. I don't think that's common around the world. Local expenses (labor, etc...) are also cheaper than in many parts of the world.
Geothermal is however one of the electricity sources with the fewest negative externalities so definitely should be pursued where possible.
Geothermal is however one of the electricity sources with the fewest negative externalities so definitely should be pursued where possible.
Touring the geothermal at Hell's Gate Park in Kenya is wild. If you've seen The Lion King, it's the inspiration for "the shadowy place over there" where the hyenas live.
Extract enough heat from Earth and Earth loses its magnetic field and then its atmosphere and oceans (from the effects of the solar wind) which sounds like a negative externality to me.
While it's true we would die first, I bet we'd transition to other power sources even earlier. If we ever get fusion working reliably, that will probably be more convenient than geothermal, and at that point the geothermal plants will start slowly going defunct with no replacements.
Extracting enough energy to do that, would probably meltdown the earth crust.
We'll (and humanity itself) be long dead by then
If you haven't done a calculation incorporating an estimate of the heat content of the Earth's interior, then you cannot know whether humanity will be dead by then.
Assuming just the inner core, using the lower bound for its temperature, specific heat capacity of iron, 20 TW being extracted, ignoring the extra power inputs in the form of radioisotope decay, crystallisation, tidal heating, I get 800 million years, which is close to when photosynthesis stops because of geological processes locking all the carbon away (trees stop working at about 600 million years, not sure about plants in general).
> We'll except the fact that deep geothermal plants are completely theoretic as a means of production
Not theoretical at all:
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/geothermal/americas-fir...
Not theoretical at all:
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/geothermal/americas-fir...
In theory the cost of the whole thing blowing up should offset this investment costs but Don't Look Up (2021) convincing the folk about potential natural disasters.
This is more like insurance. If you move to the mountains, you have to pay for special fire insurance because mountains have forest fires.
The U.S. is an extremely productive economy with at least one enormous cyclical natural catastrophe attached to it. If this natural catastrophe is preventable, and the costs of prevention are outweighed by the costs of losing the US economy, then it's probably worth doing.
I just assumed that it was one of those things that isn't economically or technically feasible.
The U.S. is an extremely productive economy with at least one enormous cyclical natural catastrophe attached to it. If this natural catastrophe is preventable, and the costs of prevention are outweighed by the costs of losing the US economy, then it's probably worth doing.
I just assumed that it was one of those things that isn't economically or technically feasible.
"Anything over around 20 cents a kWh makes it uncompetitive"
Cries in European
Cries in European
Don't mistake price of production and selling price.
When it takes times to construct additional production, you can sell the electricity at very high cost but have a low production cost.
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
Downtown where?
LADWP switched to time of use scheduling, so my rates are anywhere from 0.16/kwh to 0.21/kwh ( https://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/faces/ladwp/residential/r-custom... )
SCE is a little more expensive with their tiered plans ranging from 0.32/kwh to 0.42/kwh
For context, downtown LA should be all on LADWP
LADWP switched to time of use scheduling, so my rates are anywhere from 0.16/kwh to 0.21/kwh ( https://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/faces/ladwp/residential/r-custom... )
SCE is a little more expensive with their tiered plans ranging from 0.32/kwh to 0.42/kwh
For context, downtown LA should be all on LADWP
Downtown San Jose is around $0.75/kWh if you use power to heat/cool your 2BR unit.
Solar must be damn attractive
Hm? I live in SF and it's considerably below that on average? https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/averageenergyp... says the area averages ~0.35$
The Factorio method of problem solving, I like it.
hehe, or drilling down into the magma chamber 160 times causes it to erupt prematurely.
If plate tectonics stops, ocean life is over, then the following year, land life will also be also be over.
"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 plant. The harsh, corrosive conditions in and around the magma chamber would make drilling the wells especially difficult, and its location in the middle of nowhere would require the construction of enormous transmission lines"
"In any case, the debate is likely to remain academic for the foreseeable future. Using Yellowstone for geothermal power was made illegal by the Geothermal Steam Act of 1970"
So the answer is likely yes, in theory. But there are lots of other places, where it makes more sense to build geothermal plants. (for energy, but also security, there are lots of other potential super vulcanos that are not as activly monitored like Yellowstone is)
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 plant. The harsh, corrosive conditions in and around the magma chamber would make drilling the wells especially difficult, and its location in the middle of nowhere would require the construction of enormous transmission lines"
"In any case, the debate is likely to remain academic for the foreseeable future. Using Yellowstone for geothermal power was made illegal by the Geothermal Steam Act of 1970"
So the answer is likely yes, in theory. But there are lots of other places, where it makes more sense to build geothermal plants. (for energy, but also security, there are lots of other potential super vulcanos that are not as activly monitored like Yellowstone is)
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. Talk about catastrophically bureaucratic priorities.
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. Talk about catastrophically bureaucratic priorities.
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".
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".
> The scale and forces are far too massive for us to do anything about it.
The scale and forces behind fossil fuels are both larger and it looks like we'll have managed to run through all the easily available stuff in about a century. "The scale is really big!" isn't an argument that something can't be done. Modern humans have done a bunch of stuff that was on an unimaginable scale 500 years ago. You'd have been arguing the moon landing was impossible a century ago because the forces involved are too large.
We're not going to overcome technical challenges by banning attempts to overcome them.
> It's like saying "why don't they stop earthquakes by removing earthquake faults".
That should be an option that gets explored. I doubt the economics will work out, but if we figure out a way to extract the energy building up in fault-lines that would be a win-win-win scenario for everyone involved.
The scale and forces behind fossil fuels are both larger and it looks like we'll have managed to run through all the easily available stuff in about a century. "The scale is really big!" isn't an argument that something can't be done. Modern humans have done a bunch of stuff that was on an unimaginable scale 500 years ago. You'd have been arguing the moon landing was impossible a century ago because the forces involved are too large.
We're not going to overcome technical challenges by banning attempts to overcome them.
> It's like saying "why don't they stop earthquakes by removing earthquake faults".
That should be an option that gets explored. I doubt the economics will work out, but if we figure out a way to extract the energy building up in fault-lines that would be a win-win-win scenario for everyone involved.
I don't even see why you'd need transmission lines. Just use the enormous quantity of free energy for direct carbon capture, at that site.
At ~400 parts per million CO2 concentration, that would be wildly wasteful. We could more easily take the money that would go into building the plant and put direct capture on existing fossil fuel power plants.
Better yet would be to put up short transmission lines out of the park, and set up a dirt cheap energy district for energy intensive manufacturing- smelting, data centers, that sort of thing.
The magma chamber stays cool, there's a nice new tax base, good potential for reducing emissions, everyone wins except for the people who want Yellowstone to be untouched wilderness.
Better yet would be to put up short transmission lines out of the park, and set up a dirt cheap energy district for energy intensive manufacturing- smelting, data centers, that sort of thing.
The magma chamber stays cool, there's a nice new tax base, good potential for reducing emissions, everyone wins except for the people who want Yellowstone to be untouched wilderness.
Whilst we're increasing our CO2 output as a whole still for a good few more years we're going to go for a industrial open air carbon capture?
I wonder when people are going to realise it'll never ever make more sense to filter co2 out of the air at 400-500ppm to deposit deep underground like that compared to not pumping it up and emitting it in the first place. It's always going to be vastly more difficult and a big net loss in the end.
All the carbon capture projects like that are funded in large part by the fossil fuel industries as a cover to reduce the pressure on their backs. Not as something they believe will work long term.
The ones that do make more sense at first glance like the recent increase in direct capture in the US started to get more subsidised by the previous administration but not to benefit the environment however but to reduce the cost of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery. Because without there wasn't even enough incentive to do it right at major carbon sources when there was an industry willing to pay for the CO2.
I wonder when people are going to realise it'll never ever make more sense to filter co2 out of the air at 400-500ppm to deposit deep underground like that compared to not pumping it up and emitting it in the first place. It's always going to be vastly more difficult and a big net loss in the end.
All the carbon capture projects like that are funded in large part by the fossil fuel industries as a cover to reduce the pressure on their backs. Not as something they believe will work long term.
The ones that do make more sense at first glance like the recent increase in direct capture in the US started to get more subsidised by the previous administration but not to benefit the environment however but to reduce the cost of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery. Because without there wasn't even enough incentive to do it right at major carbon sources when there was an industry willing to pay for the CO2.
If you don't care for capture it's also practical to colocate any other big energy consumer like metal refining, drying battery materials, etc. Shipping energy 2000 miles to charge some Tesla in Poughkeepsie doesn't sound like the best application.
What are you going to do? Pipeline air/build giant fans to mix carbon rich air from elsewhere to the One Carbon Capture Plant You Spent Way Too Much making?
That is very much not how the atmosphere works. The jet stream as one example moves over the US at hundreds of miles per hour, and more generally speaking gases disperse through the atmosphere very quickly.
Even more realistically, crypto mining farms would quickly move in to use that energy and it wouldn't be hard, once you've established a stable footing to then give cheaper electricity to carbon capture types of ventures.
Love or hate crypto, it is uniquely capable of quickly moving in and making remote energy production facilities valuable. Which could then provide the infrastructure for things like carbon capture plants to exist remotely.
Love or hate crypto, it is uniquely capable of quickly moving in and making remote energy production facilities valuable. Which could then provide the infrastructure for things like carbon capture plants to exist remotely.
Given what would likely be billions of dollars to build such a plant, I am not sure why the transmission infrastructure is more than a footnote on the project. There is a lot of engineering know-how on moving electricity large distances. Less so on building the world's largest power plant in the efforts to avoid a global catastrophe.
Transmission is crazy expensive and hard to permit for. Something like this could easily be in the billions depending on how much would need to be built and the associated upgrades.
> hard to permit for
The legislative of any state can basically write a law saying "this project is exempt from review". This isn't a complicated problem like interstate water rights with American Indian treaty obligations.
The legislative of any state can basically write a law saying "this project is exempt from review". This isn't a complicated problem like interstate water rights with American Indian treaty obligations.
Depends. Because transmission lines usually cross over private property. And that can get very, very complicated.
(Unless of course you are a fan of the chinese modell and want to implement that - but even they fear people revolting over unpopular big decisions)
(Unless of course you are a fan of the chinese modell and want to implement that - but even they fear people revolting over unpopular big decisions)
Does US not have compulsory purchase process for infrastructure projects? Here in UK if there is a need to run transmision lines or whatever, the government will just compulsory purchase the land needed, you will be paid the market price for the land but you have to sell it.
Sure
From experience they try to pay far below market rate, so then people challenge it (possibly in court?). This delays things, adds expense, etc.
From experience they try to pay far below market rate, so then people challenge it (possibly in court?). This delays things, adds expense, etc.
Gosh, why didn't state "legislatives" think of "exempting from review" interstate power grid construction projects? That'll totally help with all the federal environmental regulations and power transmission regulations. And who knew that "legislatives" could just bypass any state laws they want?
You're like a walking, talking poster child for Dunning-Kruger.
You're like a walking, talking poster child for Dunning-Kruger.
The article really focused on doing this in Yellowstone, and all the problems we'd have there. I noticed the second hottest spot on the map is Southern California - which has the benefits of being a desert and close to major population that'd use the power.
Looking it up, we're of course already on top of harnessing the geothermal there https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Valley_Geothermal_Pro....
Looking it up, we're of course already on top of harnessing the geothermal there https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Valley_Geothermal_Pro....
As the article mentioned, the Yellowstone risk is more future than current, and is being extensively monitored, and "A much bigger risk is likely large eruptions from volcanoes that we aren’t tracking and have no data for.".
One that is being tracked, and showing a present threat is the Vesuvius complex (which did in Pompeii), and is showing markedly increased activity [0]. I'd be more interested in proposals that might mitigate that.
Or more generally, studies finding out how late such a project could start and still be successful, i.e., able to extract sufficient heat from the system before it erupts, thus preventing the eruption.
[0] https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/volcanos/europes-mo...
One that is being tracked, and showing a present threat is the Vesuvius complex (which did in Pompeii), and is showing markedly increased activity [0]. I'd be more interested in proposals that might mitigate that.
Or more generally, studies finding out how late such a project could start and still be successful, i.e., able to extract sufficient heat from the system before it erupts, thus preventing the eruption.
[0] https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/volcanos/europes-mo...
It'd be so cool if someone threw a ridiculous amount of money at doing this. The science seems at least plausible and there's some hypothetical benefits, but mostly it'd be a really fucking cool engineering project. Probably completely impractical, but the kind of massive "just to say we can" project I think we really need
Depending on the depth this can be risky.
Switzerland had two larger projects to dig deep enough for a geothermal power plant and both got cancled due to the triggered earth quakes. [1]
There may be another attempt but it's risky and I think doing this at Yellowstone maybe a lot more risky.
[1] https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/strom-aus-erdwaerme-trotz-sc...
Switzerland had two larger projects to dig deep enough for a geothermal power plant and both got cancled due to the triggered earth quakes. [1]
There may be another attempt but it's risky and I think doing this at Yellowstone maybe a lot more risky.
[1] https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/strom-aus-erdwaerme-trotz-sc...
I inferred from the article that the risks are very poorly understood. If it just triggers a bunch of very minor earthquakes, that would be insignificant compared to potentially preventing a civilization-ending eruption.
Maybe learning more with simulations or theory is a good way forward, or maybe small scale experiments. If we do nothing and eventually notice that a giant eruption is about to happen, I suppose it would be too late. There seem to be many similarities in long term risk and possible prevention of asteroid impacts. I think these problems are worth exploring even though there is probably no direct benefit within a human lifetime.
Maybe learning more with simulations or theory is a good way forward, or maybe small scale experiments. If we do nothing and eventually notice that a giant eruption is about to happen, I suppose it would be too late. There seem to be many similarities in long term risk and possible prevention of asteroid impacts. I think these problems are worth exploring even though there is probably no direct benefit within a human lifetime.
> The authors note that given the size of past Yellowstone eruptions, and the span of time between them, the rate that energy builds below the volcano is only around 1.5 gigawatts - less heat than a typical power plant sheds. Yellowstone currently bleeds heat at a rate of about 4.5 to 6 gigawatts, mostly through heated water moving below the surface. You'd thus (theoretically) only need to increase the heat bleed by around 35% to stop energy accumulating and stop future eruptions.
That sounds overly simplistic. Volcanic eruptions aren't caused by energy accumulation alone (otherwise every eruption would have the same magnitude), and AFAIK it's mostly the accumulation of gas that triggers eruptions, and in many cases the gas is in fact steam…
That sounds overly simplistic. Volcanic eruptions aren't caused by energy accumulation alone (otherwise every eruption would have the same magnitude), and AFAIK it's mostly the accumulation of gas that triggers eruptions, and in many cases the gas is in fact steam…
Could we trigger an eruption by extensive drilling in/around the magma chamber?
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.
A weak spot like the puncture from a well?
> Drilling into, or above, the magma chamber below Yellowstone would be fraught with problems. For one, it could potentially cause the volcano to erupt, the very thing we’re trying to avoid.
He literally just said that's not how volcanos work
Lol, thats a quote from the article.
I, for one, am pretty sure the article is wrong there. What I've heard from geologists is that Yellowstone's magma chambers simply are not molten enough to erupt.
Right, "up to 20%", whereas the threshold for "barely eruptible" is in the 50% range, according to this article: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1617105113 Unless the rules are way different for supereruptions, which I guess we have to consider, but probably not 30% different.
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.
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.
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.
But in this case, we want the elephant to (significantly) bleed out, so won’t we need a BIG needle?
If you want to move lots of heat away fast, you either need a big pipe or a very high flow rate.
“Gas-rich”, to me, also sounds as if it would be more dangerous.
If you want to move lots of heat away fast, you either need a big pipe or a very high flow rate.
“Gas-rich”, to me, also sounds as if it would be more dangerous.
In this analogy, the needle is as big as we can make it.
Gas-rich is where the danger is, as I understand it. Those gasses expand as they get closer to the surface, and if they're trapped in viscous magma that doesn't flow easily and puts a lot of stress on the rocks above.
The fluid basaltic lavas of Hawaii don't explode, they flow out and make shield volcanos.
Check out geologist Shawn Wilsey's videos.
Gas-rich is where the danger is, as I understand it. Those gasses expand as they get closer to the surface, and if they're trapped in viscous magma that doesn't flow easily and puts a lot of stress on the rocks above.
The fluid basaltic lavas of Hawaii don't explode, they flow out and make shield volcanos.
Check out geologist Shawn Wilsey's videos.
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?
The magma, like Champaign, is indeed gas rich, and when the pressure lowers, the gas is released and wants to go away, carrying lots of material with it, be it Champaign, rock or lava, that's how you get the projections (the eruption per se)
"an upheaval from the mantle eventually surfacing through a weak spot" sounds like a more technical way of saying "the earth popping like a balloon". I'm prepared to believe there are differences but your explanation doesn't really convey them to me.
> given the size of past Yellowstone eruptions, and the span of time between them, the rate that energy builds below the volcano is only around 1.5 gigawatts - less heat than a typical power plant sheds. Yellowstone currently bleeds heat at a rate of about 4.5 to 6 gigawatts, mostly through heated water moving below the surface. You'd thus (theoretically) only need to increase the heat bleed by around 35% to stop energy accumulating and stop future eruptions.
Doesn't this say that the heat bleed is already at least 300% of what's necessary to stop energy from accumulating?
Doesn't this say that the heat bleed is already at least 300% of what's necessary to stop energy from accumulating?
No, it says that energy is bleeding at 4.5 GW and accumulating at 1.5GW. To get accumulation to 0, you need to boost bleeding by that amount.
Isn't this basically the background to HZD: Frozen Wastes? A failing geoengineering project to keep Yellowstone stable.
Vibes of this Onion parody:
“Bush Vows To Remove Toxic Petroleum From National Parks”
https://www.theonion.com/bush-vows-to-remove-toxic-petroleum...
“Bush Vows To Remove Toxic Petroleum From National Parks”
https://www.theonion.com/bush-vows-to-remove-toxic-petroleum...
Strong "I drink your milkshake!" vibes from these proposals.
Both of these proposals require political stability we're unlikely to see over 600 or 50,000 years. You have to be thinking some kind of self-sustaining and monumental Pyramids-type project.
Both of these proposals require political stability we're unlikely to see over 600 or 50,000 years. You have to be thinking some kind of self-sustaining and monumental Pyramids-type project.
Capitalism wise they should be safe. Unless there is a war why wouldn’t the plants keep running?
> Unless there is a war
I think you will have trouble finding many places that haven't been touched by conflict in 800 years, given anyone lives there. If there's humans, there will be war.
I think you will have trouble finding many places that haven't been touched by conflict in 800 years, given anyone lives there. If there's humans, there will be war.
Probably could. I doubt the US has the ability to do it. CA can't even finish the bart and they can't even finish the high speed rail.
Huge infra structure projects like this are no longer feasible in terms of cost and political/collective will in the US.
It's almost a 99% guarantee this will never get built ever. At least not by the US. Any time you see speculative stuff about big projects in the US that aren't related to the military it's a pretty much a guarantied pipe dream.
The only way I see it getting built if they angle it as some kind of military thing to stay competitive with China. But that's really a stretch.
Huge infra structure projects like this are no longer feasible in terms of cost and political/collective will in the US.
It's almost a 99% guarantee this will never get built ever. At least not by the US. Any time you see speculative stuff about big projects in the US that aren't related to the military it's a pretty much a guarantied pipe dream.
The only way I see it getting built if they angle it as some kind of military thing to stay competitive with China. But that's really a stretch.
There's already federal laws against setting up geothermal power generation in Yellowstone.
Any discussion on the topic has to begin with assuming the usual red tape has been cut (however much I agree with the impossibility of that happening aside).
Any discussion on the topic has to begin with assuming the usual red tape has been cut (however much I agree with the impossibility of that happening aside).
A federal law can easily be changed by simply passing another federal law. It's not like a constitutional change.
Of course, this requires political will too, but unlike various other issues, I doubt that some old law protecting national parks is going to be held as sacrosanct as the second amendment. The GOP certainly doesn't care about protecting NP resources, and the Dems will agree too as long as enough scientists tell them it's a good idea.
Of course, this requires political will too, but unlike various other issues, I doubt that some old law protecting national parks is going to be held as sacrosanct as the second amendment. The GOP certainly doesn't care about protecting NP resources, and the Dems will agree too as long as enough scientists tell them it's a good idea.
It's never this simple. There are multitudes of interested parties in either direction not just at the federal level, but below it from state, to county, to city and more.
This is a National Park. There is no county or city involved; it's federal land. Even the state it's in has pretty much zero say.
They have a say. Everyone is going to throw in their two cents here. A policy change like this involves the legislative branch which involves everyone. Even corporate interests.
It's not going to be some scientists making a statement and then the federal government putting their hammer down. In china I can see this happening, but in the US it's a democracy.
It's not going to be some scientists making a statement and then the federal government putting their hammer down. In china I can see this happening, but in the US it's a democracy.
How exactly do you "finish the Bart"? It's not a perfect system, but there are stations and trains and they run and people (including me) use it to get around.
The goal is to ring it around the bay. They've been failing to do this for decades. You'll probably be dead before they finish that.
That hasn’t actually been a goal for 50 years. That was a “maybe if this is really successful we’ll do it” vision in the early days of BART planning.
Extend to downtown San Jose? Maybe a goal for 20 years from now. Add additional transbay tubes? Sure, if the tooth fairy pays for it. The electorate emphatically does not want to pay for more BART, much as I’d like it to be otherwise.
Extend to downtown San Jose? Maybe a goal for 20 years from now. Add additional transbay tubes? Sure, if the tooth fairy pays for it. The electorate emphatically does not want to pay for more BART, much as I’d like it to be otherwise.
>maybe if this is really successful we’ll do it
Even worse. They're so self aware of their own incompetence they know it's pure luck if they can pull it off. My overall point still stands they can barely ring it around the bay they definitely won't be able to build a single geothermal plant in Yellowstone.
How come in other countries you get a much nicer train and you don't need the tooth fairy to pay for it? Rhetorical question.
Even worse. They're so self aware of their own incompetence they know it's pure luck if they can pull it off. My overall point still stands they can barely ring it around the bay they definitely won't be able to build a single geothermal plant in Yellowstone.
How come in other countries you get a much nicer train and you don't need the tooth fairy to pay for it? Rhetorical question.
I can't help but wonder if the yellowstone caldera going off would also trigger the cascadian subduction zone into doing it's thing sympathetically.
Research like this really gives me cause for optimism about our ability to find creative solutions to the biggest issues facing humanity. It can’t lull us into complacency that “someone will figure it out”, but if we can mitigate volcanic eruptions while generating gigawatts of energy (albeit hypothetical), I hope we can also find ways to mitigate the effects of climate change.
I suspect it would work as well as building a giant system of dykes protected New Orleans from flooding in a hurricane.
Would pulling that much heat out of the ground help or hurt global warming?
Global warming doesn't come from heat from the ground, but from the atmosphere absorbing extra heat from the sun due to the increased amount of CO2 in it. If this geothermal energy generates enough power so we burn less fossil fuels put less CO2 into the atmosphere, it will slow global warming. The amount of heat we'd get from the ground would be comparable to the amount of heat we get from burning fossil fuels, and both would be negligible compared to the amount of additional heat we get from the sun.
Surely it would have to increase global warming unless there were effects such as a nuclear winter caused by a sudden uncontrolled release of the heat.
If you consider that that heat is stored underground where it doesn't affect weather patterns, then moving it to the surface is bound to involve the use of energy to move it and that energy will contribute to global warming as well as the heat released by the whole project.
If you consider that that heat is stored underground where it doesn't affect weather patterns, then moving it to the surface is bound to involve the use of energy to move it and that energy will contribute to global warming as well as the heat released by the whole project.
My understanding is that it can't really affect it. To the extent we extract heat beyond what the greenhouse effect can warm the earth to, it will radiate out into space. The only real way to heat up the planet long-term is to prevent heat from radiating out by increasing greenhouse gasses.
What would it take to convert the Earth into a star?
Several thousand Earth masses of hydrogen, with the unfortunate side effect of ending all life here.
tl;dr -- likely yes, by building geothermal power plants. This would cost billions (not trillions) of dollars. It would generate a fair bit of power, but not an extraordinary amount. They would run for (depending on how many we build) anywhere from a thousand to a hundred thousand years.
And if we're not careful there's a slight chance we could trigger an eruption instead of preventing one.
And if we're not careful there's a slight chance we could trigger an eruption instead of preventing one.
I love questions like this that feel like an XKCD
wforus39(1)
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 eruption under that power plant we might learn something about the advantages and potential pitfalls of this proposal.