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Yellowstone Supervolcano Larger Than First Thought
drewtheman writes "New studies of the plumbing that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano in Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park shows the plume and the magma chamber under the volcano are larger than first thought and contradicts claims that only shallow hot rock exists. University of Utah research professor of geophysics Robert Smith led four separate studies that verify a plume of hot and molten rock at least 410 miles deep that rises at an angle from the northwest."
That is pretty deep, it extends well below the earths crust which is about 30 miles thick below the continents, so it goes well into the mantle of the earth. This could be a similar hotspot feature to hawaii, however may manifest in a different way on the thicker continental crust compared to the oceanic crust beneath hawaii. Other similar features of this kind are the New England Hotspot which produces a series of volcanos in Quebec which have become series of hills including the one Montreal is named after. That hotspot is now inactive and off the coast of africa (the crust moved, not the hotspot).
A better solution would be to install several large geothermal power generation plants...
But this would "ruin" the park.
Ahh well who wants to save the world and get nearly free electricity out of the deal.
Yes.
People need to realize this right now. What are we still doing here? Doesn't it seem a little stupid to keep all this intelligence on one tiny, tiny planet? We're the only conscious things we know of, but any number of frequent, devastating events could end that forever. You'd think getting off this rock would be humanity's first priority.
This thing goes down 410 miles. Geothermal wells go maybe a mile. Even the deepest well in the world is only about 20 miles. I doubt we're going to release any pressure with even our best efforts.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
In practically anthing shy of an extinction-level event, the biggest danger won't be the event - it'll be ourselves. No doubt enough heavy weapons will survive the event that the next round of major death will be the survivors duking it out. We won't be able to begin the business of survival, let along climbing back, until the heavy weapons are spent, or at least until the long-distance delivery mechanisms are.
The other thing to realize is that we've used up the easy resources building our civilization. If we destroy our technological base, it'll still be easy getting basics like iron and aluminum, but the only easy petrochemicals will be those in storage tanks. Even peak-oil deniers would agree that the oil that is left requires higher technology than Jed Clampett had, in order to reach it. Climbing back would be a tough process.
As for other rocks, they may not be as inherently survivable as Earth, even considering a disaster, but presumably the survivor-violence would be removed. The real problem is building a local technology base sufficient to sustain life in a hostile environment, absent help from Earth.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
No one lives far away enough from Yellowstone if there is a supervolcano eruption.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
For instance, what you will find missing along the Yellowstone hotspot's line of travel are... oh, such minor things as... an entire section of the mountain range it sits in.
I was wondering if you were exaggerating, so I looked up the map:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=yellowstone&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=44.60973,63.28125&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Yellowstone,+Portland,+Multnomah,+Oregon&ll=43.47684,-113.411865&spn=5.133958,7.910156&t=p&z=7
Yeah, that's just a little bit creepy right there.
(Compare with http://geodyn.ess.ucla.edu/~hernlund/humphreys-nicemap.jpg)
Quite simply, the last super-eruption contained more than 10 times the force of all the nuclear bombs ever created.
The ENTIRE US consumes about 400 petajoules of energy each year.
But the Yellowstone explosion that formed the crater used up 3,661,000 petajoules. That's over 9 thousand times the energy. So lets say we really go all out and find a way to safely handle ALL the energy the US normally uses in a year. We drain 400 petajoules each year from yellowstone. Granted, most of that power would be wasted as you lose energy when you transport it long distances, but lets pretend we care more about removing the energy than using it. I doubt we COULD drain that much energy, but lets assume we could.
So, each year we drain about 1/9000th of the energy. Assuming it is about to blow (as it has been a VERY long time since it has blown), in 4,500 years, we will have halved the size of the explosion.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Supervolcanoes can occur when magma in the Earth rises into the crust from a hotspot but is unable to break through the crust
I think that is the crux of the solution right there. You don't need or even want to concern yourself with the whole area of molten rock that is under Yellowstone. You want to tap into and bleed off energy from the hotspots. Do this using lateral drilling with liquid cooled drillbits. Once you hit molten stuff, you will basically be creating a pipe of hardened magma as you progress through the center of the hotspot. If the surrounding heat threatens to overpower your cooling system, just stop the progression of the drill until the cooling system can make the pipe walls thicker.
The removed heat can be used to drive turbines to create electricity.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba