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> apparently super volcanoes are also right up there. And I don't think there is a damn thing we can do about them I'm not sure about that. Don't get me wrong

by ben_w 1y ago

> apparently super volcanoes are also right up there. And I don't think there is a damn thing we can do about them I'm not sure about that. Don't get me wrong, an example of a super-volcano is Yellowstone National Park, so I agree we can't prevent them Rather, looking at the pandemic response and various wars, I think (most) world governments are competent enough to re-organise labour and national diets to mitigate the problems one would cause: covering farms in poly-tunnels, having "national service" that's about building/repurposing farming infrastructure rather than military function, food rationing, changes to farming laws to make sure livestock is only on land that doesn't support intensive crops, etc.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> an example of a super-volcano is Yellowstone National Park, so I agree we can't prevent them We absolutely can, and extract geothermal energy from the system to boot.
- ben_w 1y ago
  Are you sure? Everything I've seen suggests that the thermal mass of the Yellowstone magma reservoir is order-of 10km each way (so 1000km^3 total), density order-of 3 kg/litre, and heat capacity order-of 1500 J/kg K, so lowering the temperature of that reservoir by 100 K would still yield about the entire world's energy consumption in 2017: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1000km%5E3+*+3kg%2Fl+*+%281500+J%2Fkg+K%29+*+100+K https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1000km%5E3+*+3kg%2Fl+*+... Even though this would combine both left-coded and right-coded aspects of the USA's politics (right: the USA's love of energy intensity; left: in this scenario it helps the environment not be made of fire), I find it dubious that the US would (or could) construct enough power plants to reach that scale. (China might even want to help, but at this point I find myself too cynical of both China and the USA for that to happen even in an emergency).

by ben_w 1y ago

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> an example of a super-volcano is Yellowstone National Park, so I agree we can't prevent them We absolutely can, and extract geothermal energy from the system to boot.

ben_w 1y ago
Are you sure? Everything I've seen suggests that the thermal mass of the Yellowstone magma reservoir is order-of 10km each way (so 1000km^3 total), density order-of 3 kg/litre, and heat capacity order-of 1500 J/kg K, so lowering the temperature of that reservoir by 100 K would still yield about the entire world's energy consumption in 2017: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1000km%5E3+*+3kg%2Fl+*+%281500+J%2Fkg+K%29+*+100+K https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1000km%5E3+*+3kg%2Fl+*+... Even though this would combine both left-coded and right-coded aspects of the USA's politics (right: the USA's love of energy intensity; left: in this scenario it helps the environment not be made of fire), I find it dubious that the US would (or could) construct enough power plants to reach that scale. (China might even want to help, but at this point I find myself too cynical of both China and the USA for that to happen even in an emergency).