3 ms·
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, s
by 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 agoYes, 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 agoSo take your ball and go home.
- dboreham 5y agoWater 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 agoBuild 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...