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People have pondered cooling Yellowstone's magma chamber by surrounding it with geothermal wells.† The result would be 5GW (for comparison that is 1/6th of Cali
by jws 6y ago
People have pondered cooling Yellowstone's magma chamber by surrounding it with geothermal wells.† The result would be 5GW (for comparison that is 1/6th of California's needs) of clean energy at about $0.10/kWH for thousands of years and a significantly reduced chance of a supervolcano eruption event killing millions of people.
It might alter or stop the geysers though, so it isn't going to go anywhere.
[†] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170817-nasas-ambitious-plan-to-save-earth-from-a-supervolcano https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170817-nasas-ambitious-...
- blacksmith_tb 6y agoI doubt it's about preserving the geysers for tourists... seems more likely that a multibillion-dollar pricetag combined with the relative uncertainty of an eruption is what has cooled enthusiasm for the plan[1]. But that is a lot of power, so it's not impossible to imagine, if the investment paid off in the long term. 1: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/no-nasa-isnt-going-to-drill-to-stop-yellowstone-from-erupting https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/no-nasa-isnt-g...