It’s become fairly common knowledge that Yellowstone National Park, in addition to being incredibly beautiful, is sitting on top of an enormous supervolcano that catastrophically erupts every few hundred thousand years. Unlike normal volcanoes, which tend to produce large cone-shaped mountains made of ash and lava, supervolcano eruptions (defined being at least an 8 on the
I agree. These guys must be idiots to think a noble metal would not react to the acids. John, from the internet, seems to know whats up everyone. Why not diamonds, right?
There’s a huge industry dedicated to that concept, hardfacing. If you’re going to plate the gold that plates the copper, why not just use that material to begin with?
If you could only make a Youtube video out of this my 15year son old would be glued to the screen. So I have to wait if he develops the same joy in reading blogs and articles as I do, besides some fantasy novels he is already into...
Seems to me another big question is should we do it now. Given both the time frame for a Yellowstone eruption and the rate at which our technology improves and many kinds of cost decrease it seems like it might make sense to simply wait and do it later.
I'm much more interested in the ability to cool smaller more active volcanoes but maybe that's different.
As an aside, I think similar concerns about time apply to nuclear waste storage. Rather than trying to design a program that can store the waste for 10,000 (or an absurd 100,000) years it might make more sense to design a 500 year solution which leaves the waste accessible to be restored at that time.
I mean, there are basically two possibilities. Either in 500 years we will have resources and capabilities that are absolutely incredible with respect to what we have now (imagine the Jacobean's trying to design a containment system for smallpox samples...we'd probably want to revamp it anyway). Or we fear some kind of serious catastrophe that undermines our future growth. But in that later case it seems particularly unwise to spend money on making sure the post catastrophe civilization doesn't have problems with radioactive hazards in some remote area rather than spending it to try and reduce the risk of that outcome. Or if we can't figure out how to do that just investing in medical research which, over even 500 years, would have a large upside.
Certainly, it can't make sense to be spending money trying to figure out ways to warn some potential post-civilization collapse human society away from the location. I mean, in terms of expected value the loss of QALYs those low population primitive future descendants might suffer would be quite small compared to either just the over-time benefits of simply increased medical research or even the tiniest decrease in chance of said catastrophe.
While this project sounds a dubious the case for doing increased monitoring of other volcanoes which may turn out to warrant exactly this sort of project sounds overwhelming.
If you are going to write an article using lots of numbers representing energy then you should learn that Gigawatts is not Energy, it is Power. Please correct your physics and perhaps people could then believe you. Energy=Gigawatt-hours, Power=Gigawatts.
If you had all this free energy, why would you waste (apparently) 85% of it by converting to electricity? If the energy could be used directly for carbon capture from the atmosphere, the amount we are talking about would be sufficient to return the atmosphere to pre-industrial CO2 concentrations.
These proposals strike me as things undertaken at the height of progressivism in the 19th and 20th centuries that we now know are catastrophic in the long term.
Certainly funding should be provided for research on whether it is safe to use geothermal like this. Ideally it would be tried out on smaller potential volcanoes, further away from large centres of population
I think the analysis of whether we should do it at Yellowstone also needs to consider things like population density at the areas most likely to be be impacted the most and whether advanced warning will be of any help.
I struggle to believe that someone who proposes gold plated copper for a subterranean pipe has an idea what they’re talking about
I agree. These guys must be idiots to think a noble metal would not react to the acids. John, from the internet, seems to know whats up everyone. Why not diamonds, right?
Gold is soft and rocks are hard. Geology isn’t static and the gold would wear away
Could it be shielded?
There’s a huge industry dedicated to that concept, hardfacing. If you’re going to plate the gold that plates the copper, why not just use that material to begin with?
I mean the Dutton ranch is close to Yellowstone, so the rich NIMBYS will be there for sure
If you could only make a Youtube video out of this my 15year son old would be glued to the screen. So I have to wait if he develops the same joy in reading blogs and articles as I do, besides some fantasy novels he is already into...
fnially, a way to slow down global warming - a good cat-8 volcano every decade or so until we get our act together.
Seems to me another big question is should we do it now. Given both the time frame for a Yellowstone eruption and the rate at which our technology improves and many kinds of cost decrease it seems like it might make sense to simply wait and do it later.
I'm much more interested in the ability to cool smaller more active volcanoes but maybe that's different.
As an aside, I think similar concerns about time apply to nuclear waste storage. Rather than trying to design a program that can store the waste for 10,000 (or an absurd 100,000) years it might make more sense to design a 500 year solution which leaves the waste accessible to be restored at that time.
I mean, there are basically two possibilities. Either in 500 years we will have resources and capabilities that are absolutely incredible with respect to what we have now (imagine the Jacobean's trying to design a containment system for smallpox samples...we'd probably want to revamp it anyway). Or we fear some kind of serious catastrophe that undermines our future growth. But in that later case it seems particularly unwise to spend money on making sure the post catastrophe civilization doesn't have problems with radioactive hazards in some remote area rather than spending it to try and reduce the risk of that outcome. Or if we can't figure out how to do that just investing in medical research which, over even 500 years, would have a large upside.
Certainly, it can't make sense to be spending money trying to figure out ways to warn some potential post-civilization collapse human society away from the location. I mean, in terms of expected value the loss of QALYs those low population primitive future descendants might suffer would be quite small compared to either just the over-time benefits of simply increased medical research or even the tiniest decrease in chance of said catastrophe.
💯
While this project sounds a dubious the case for doing increased monitoring of other volcanoes which may turn out to warrant exactly this sort of project sounds overwhelming.
If you are going to write an article using lots of numbers representing energy then you should learn that Gigawatts is not Energy, it is Power. Please correct your physics and perhaps people could then believe you. Energy=Gigawatt-hours, Power=Gigawatts.
If you had all this free energy, why would you waste (apparently) 85% of it by converting to electricity? If the energy could be used directly for carbon capture from the atmosphere, the amount we are talking about would be sufficient to return the atmosphere to pre-industrial CO2 concentrations.
These proposals strike me as things undertaken at the height of progressivism in the 19th and 20th centuries that we now know are catastrophic in the long term.
Like the Hoover Dam? Or the reservoirs that give NYC some of the best water on the world?
It's interesting to think of advanced geothermal as a carbon free but nonrenewable resource
It's interesting to think of advanced geothermal as a carbon free but nonrenewable resource
Valuable article.
It only takes a pin prick to pop a balloon...
Certainly funding should be provided for research on whether it is safe to use geothermal like this. Ideally it would be tried out on smaller potential volcanoes, further away from large centres of population
Farther away than northwestern Wyoming?
Cool! So interesting!
I think the analysis of whether we should do it at Yellowstone also needs to consider things like population density at the areas most likely to be be impacted the most and whether advanced warning will be of any help.
Fascinating!