Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Monday August 21 2017, @09:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the matter-of-scale dept.

A NASA plan to stop a supervolcano from erupting would also be a source of geothermal energy:

Beneath Yellowstone National Park is a giant volcano. The heat from this volcano powers all of the park's famous geysers and hot springs, so most tourists probably don't worry about having tons of hot magma under their feet. But perhaps they should: The Yellowstone supervolcano is a disaster waiting to happen.

The supervolcano erupts about every 600,000 years, and it's been about that long since the last eruption. That means the volcano could erupt any day now, and if it does it'll send enough dust and ash into the sky to blot out the sun for years, along with blowing a 25-mile-wide crater in the western U.S. That's why a group of NASA scientists and engineers are developing a plan to prevent an eruption by stealing the volcano's heat.

[...] NASA's plan is to drill a hole into the side of the volcano and pump water through it. When the water comes back out, it'll be heated to over 600 degrees, slowly cooling the volcano. The team hopes that given enough time, this process will take enough heat from the volcano to prevent it from ever erupting.

As a bonus, the scientists are proposing to use the heated water as a source of geothermal energy, potentially powering the entire Yellowstone region with heat from the volcano that wants to destroy it. A geothermal generator could produce energy at around $0.10 per kWh, competitive with other energy sources.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday August 21 2017, @03:48PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday August 21 2017, @03:48PM (#557074)

    Or to de-whoosh your reasoning, they already use volcano geothermal power in Iceland and have witnessed the beneficial side-effects on seismic activity so it's tested to work.

    Well then this is one giant reason we simply *cannot* do this here in the US. It's utterly impossible for us to do something here which has been done successfully somewhere else.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Insightful=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3