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The Yellowstone Supervolcano

namlliT noD
@DonTillman
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Yellowstone magma chambers, via discovermagazine.com

News item:

Could We Stop Yellowstone From Erupting with a Giant Geothermal Power Plant?

"Yellowstone National Park, in addition to being incredibly beautiful, is sitting on top of an enormous supervolcano that catastrophically erupts every few hundred thousand years.
[...]
The volume of ash ejected into the atmosphere would be similar in magnitude to the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs (along with 75% of all plant and animal species), and have similar effects."

Oh dear.

The optimistic approach proposed in the article is that this is an enormous potential source of geothermal power, and tapping into that could provide free energy while reducing the geologic stresses, and putting off a very dangerous eruption. Talk about about a win-win.

The problem is that there's little use for generated electricity in the Yellowstone area. And transporting electricity over long distances is lossy.

News item: President Trump proposes building new Freedom Cities on undeveloped federal land.

I first dismissed this idea because existing cities already have the infrastructure and could use the help. And cities have often been built near resources, such as navigable rivers.

But here is a different resource; basically unlimited free energy in the form of heat and electricity.

This looks like an opportunity for a new city new Yellowstone that would be serving energy-heavy industries.

This post was promoted to the Main Feed at the recommendation of Ricochet's members.

Discussion (58)

  • Dr. Bastiat@drbastiat
    namlliT noD (View Post):
    “Yellowstone National Park, in addition to being incredibly beautiful, is sitting on top of an enormous supervolcano that catastrophically erupts every few hundred thousand years.
    […]
    The volume of ash ejected into the atmosphere would be similar in magnitude to the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs (along with 75% of all plant and animal species), and have similar effects.”

    So these scientists thing that Yellowstone's volcano wipes out 75% of all plant and animal species every few hundred thousand years?

    What are we all doing here, then?

  • Arahant@Arahant
    ReplyingtoDr. Bastiat

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    namlliT noD (View Post):

    namlliT noD (View Post):
    “Yellowstone National Park, in addition to being incredibly beautiful, is sitting on top of an enormous supervolcano that catastrophically erupts every few hundred thousand years.
    […]
    The volume of ash ejected into the atmosphere would be similar in magnitude to the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs (along with 75% of all plant and animal species), and have similar effects.”

    So these scientists thing that Yellowstone’s volcano wipes out 75% of all plant and animal species every few hundred thousand years?

    What are we all doing here, then?

    "Life, uh, finds a way."

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