5 ms·

TFA says that heat flux out of the supervolcano is the main mitigating factor in build-up of explosive potential inside the caldera. Therefore, increasing heat

TFA says that heat flux out of the supervolcano is the main mitigating factor in build-up of explosive potential inside the caldera. Therefore, increasing heat flux by 35% would (we think) prevent Yellowstone (e.g.,) from ever erupting again, based on current heat influx and the perceived rate of eruptions (n=3). So, inject more water to cool it more quickly, and, bonus, use the hot water to create power at $0.1/kWh, up to 20 GW. What's terrifying is how quickly we're drying up the water elsewhere in the country, and the existing water in Yellowstone is the primary method of cooling the magma [tfa]. If we dry it out, it's boom time a lot sooner. They have a whole section on this, but I'm fairly certain this is the next environmental movie disaster plot: Increasing water use dries out the only heat sink preventing a volcano that destroys life on the Western Hemisphere, and causes a near-extinction in humans everywhere else.

irrational 5y ago
That is very interesting. I live in Portland Oregon, recently we were driving out to a park and looked over and saw a mountain we had never seen before. It literally took us 5 minutes, looking at google maps, to realize it was Mount Hood - a mountain that we had seen hundreds of times before. But we didn't recognize it because it was snow free. In 21 years we've never seen it without it's cap of snow/ice and couldn't recognize it. It was shocking to say the least and really hit home what is going on with water in the region.
- elihu 5y ago
  As a side tangent, Oregon is a part of the world where volcanoes do just sort of spring up practically overnight, geologically speaking. Mt Bachelor was formed between 18,000 and 8,000 years ago, according to wikipedia. They can also disappear literally overnight. Mt Mazama erupted about 7,700 years ago and is now Crater lake. There were a lot of eruptions around Newberry caldera around that same time, and there've been eruptions as recently as about 1,300 years ago.
  - angelzen 5y ago
    There is also Mt St Helens, short distance across the Columbia, which largely disappeared in 1980.
    - irrational 5y ago
      It didn’t disappear, it’s still there. It’s just scattered over a much larger area ;-)
    - elihu 5y ago
      Good point. Also worth noting that that was comparatively mild; according to Wikipedia, St. Helens ejected a little more than a cubic mile of material, whereas Mt. Mazama is estimated to have ejected about 27 cubic miles of material. It's hard to imagine that kind of explosion. Mt. Mazama seems to have been a bit of an outlier, though: > The United States Geological Survey has referred to the 7,700 years ago Mazama eruption as the largest explosive eruption within the Cascades in the past million years, and one of the largest eruptions during the Holocene epoch. Seems kind of improbable that the biggest anything happened in the most recent 0.77% of the observed time interval, which makes me wonder if there may have been others we just don't know about. Improbable events do happen though, so maybe it's just dumb luck (if we want to call it that) that we had such an event within relatively recent history.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Seems kind of improbable that the biggest anything happened in the most recent 0.77% of the observed time interval, The biggest has to happen sometime, and whenever it does will be an improbable time for it to have occurred if the probability is uniform and the resolution of time tracked is high relative to the total interval.
  - Smoosh 5y ago
    If you are interested in the geology of the region, can I recommend to you the videos by Nick Zentner: https://www.nickzentner.com/pbs-nick-on-the-rocks-1/ https://www.nickzentner.com/pbs-nick-on-the-rocks-1/ Also with videos on Youtube in his own channel and in the Central Washington University channel.
NortySpock 5y ago
Nice, digging into the article now... Only 20 GW thermal? In my head nuclear power plants emit roughly 4GW thermal which is converted to 1GW electric energy, so cooling Yellowstone seems well within our technological capabilities... with open cycle water cooling. To save water, I wonder if you could use another system like air shafts or a closed-cycle water system, similar to how nuclear power plants have primary and secondary coolant loops -- the primary loops being closed and the secondary loops being "mostly closed" or have some other mechanism of discarding heat.
- jvanderbot 5y ago
  Yes, the cooling aspect is what TFA says is doable. It's the heat transmission / drilling part that's hard (It's 400C or worse and 1+km down). They have some reasonable solutions. We'll never do it. Environmental conservation groups would see it as a capitalist cash grab, and the right would see it as a waste of money and energy based on alarmist scientists getting too much press. And anyway, we'll drain all the water out of the west coast in 50 years and there'll be nothing left to set up a pump / capture plant.
  - seandoe 5y ago
    So take your ball and go home.
  - dboreham 5y ago
    Water in the Yellowstone ecosystem comes from local snowpack -- the area contains the headwaters for the Yellowstone and Snake rivers and so is a net exporter of water.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    Build hyperloops, build pipelines, build utilidors, use them for HVDC and implement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power_Alliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power... or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recycling_and_Northern_Development_Canal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recycling_and_Northern_D...

irrational 5y ago

That is very interesting. I live in Portland Oregon, recently we were driving out to a park and looked over and saw a mountain we had never seen before. It literally took us 5 minutes, looking at google maps, to realize it was Mount Hood - a mountain that we had seen hundreds of times before. But we didn't recognize it because it was snow free. In 21 years we've never seen it without it's cap of snow/ice and couldn't recognize it. It was shocking to say the least and really hit home what is going on with water in the region.

elihu 5y ago
As a side tangent, Oregon is a part of the world where volcanoes do just sort of spring up practically overnight, geologically speaking. Mt Bachelor was formed between 18,000 and 8,000 years ago, according to wikipedia. They can also disappear literally overnight. Mt Mazama erupted about 7,700 years ago and is now Crater lake. There were a lot of eruptions around Newberry caldera around that same time, and there've been eruptions as recently as about 1,300 years ago.
- angelzen 5y ago
  There is also Mt St Helens, short distance across the Columbia, which largely disappeared in 1980.
  - irrational 5y ago
    It didn’t disappear, it’s still there. It’s just scattered over a much larger area ;-)
  - elihu 5y ago
    Good point. Also worth noting that that was comparatively mild; according to Wikipedia, St. Helens ejected a little more than a cubic mile of material, whereas Mt. Mazama is estimated to have ejected about 27 cubic miles of material. It's hard to imagine that kind of explosion. Mt. Mazama seems to have been a bit of an outlier, though: > The United States Geological Survey has referred to the 7,700 years ago Mazama eruption as the largest explosive eruption within the Cascades in the past million years, and one of the largest eruptions during the Holocene epoch. Seems kind of improbable that the biggest anything happened in the most recent 0.77% of the observed time interval, which makes me wonder if there may have been others we just don't know about. Improbable events do happen though, so maybe it's just dumb luck (if we want to call it that) that we had such an event within relatively recent history.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Seems kind of improbable that the biggest anything happened in the most recent 0.77% of the observed time interval, The biggest has to happen sometime, and whenever it does will be an improbable time for it to have occurred if the probability is uniform and the resolution of time tracked is high relative to the total interval.
- Smoosh 5y ago
  If you are interested in the geology of the region, can I recommend to you the videos by Nick Zentner: https://www.nickzentner.com/pbs-nick-on-the-rocks-1/ https://www.nickzentner.com/pbs-nick-on-the-rocks-1/ Also with videos on Youtube in his own channel and in the Central Washington University channel.

NortySpock 5y ago

Nice, digging into the article now... Only 20 GW thermal? In my head nuclear power plants emit roughly 4GW thermal which is converted to 1GW electric energy, so cooling Yellowstone seems well within our technological capabilities... with open cycle water cooling. To save water, I wonder if you could use another system like air shafts or a closed-cycle water system, similar to how nuclear power plants have primary and secondary coolant loops -- the primary loops being closed and the secondary loops being "mostly closed" or have some other mechanism of discarding heat.

jvanderbot 5y ago
Yes, the cooling aspect is what TFA says is doable. It's the heat transmission / drilling part that's hard (It's 400C or worse and 1+km down). They have some reasonable solutions. We'll never do it. Environmental conservation groups would see it as a capitalist cash grab, and the right would see it as a waste of money and energy based on alarmist scientists getting too much press. And anyway, we'll drain all the water out of the west coast in 50 years and there'll be nothing left to set up a pump / capture plant.
- seandoe 5y ago
  So take your ball and go home.
- dboreham 5y ago
  Water in the Yellowstone ecosystem comes from local snowpack -- the area contains the headwaters for the Yellowstone and Snake rivers and so is a net exporter of water.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  Build hyperloops, build pipelines, build utilidors, use them for HVDC and implement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power_Alliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power... or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recycling_and_Northern_Development_Canal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recycling_and_Northern_D...