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Volcano Skyscraper Harnesses Clean Energy from Active Volcanoes
- dalke 14y agoThis proposal isn't remotely believable. Quoting from http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120813/srep00572/fig_tab/srep00572_T1.html http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120813/srep00572/fig_tab/sre... some 4.8E11 kg of tephra and lava came from the eruption. That's 480,000,000 tons, or 1/8th of the world's production of concrete. So, let's build a cover which can hold down an eruption. That will need to be stronger than rock, and able to withstand the force that can eject 250 million cubic meters of tephra up to 9km above the ground. How much material do you think is needed? Think of it this way - the entire mass of the volcano isn't enough to keep the eruption from happening. The ice cap on Eyjafjallajökull wasn't able to cool it down enough. Human-produced dry ice certainly wouldn't be anywhere near enough. And if it were enough, the sublimated CO2 pouring off the side of a volcano near Mexico City would suffocate many more people than Lake Nyos ever did. Even if it could be covered and cooled down, there's a lot of energy underneath the surface. If it's blocked, it will easily find a new route. Which means that this is, as is obvious from the first glace, a bunch of architects who had a chance to ignore reality to make something which sounds cool.