The Supervolcano Under Yellowstone Is Alive and Kicking (2017) | Hacker News Reader

The Supervolcano Under Yellowstone Is Alive and Kicking (2017)

earth.nautil.us

42 pointsrbanffy49 comments

The article is very interesting and hyped me up to see the crude model of the super volcano, so its not cool that they didn't show that picture.

I don't know if it is this one https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/348/6236/773/F4.l...

The paper is from 2015, should match https://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6236/773/tab-figu...

This article is from 2017. More recent research (though sadly, I do not have the link handy) has indicated that the magma reservoir beneath Yellowstone is something like 90% solid, and thus vanishingly unlikely to cause an eruption any time soon.

Sure, it's still hot, especially by our fragile human standards, but it's not going to go "BOOM".

There was a fascinating show on the Discovery Channel about the super volcano under Yellowstone and how truly large and potentially devastating it is.

Unfortunately being the Discovery Channel they spent more time animating the end of the world (in the US anyway) aspect than anything.

And ending on the ominous message that's is a only a matter of time before it blows. Could be tomorrow or in 100,000 years, we're not sure.

All the more reason to set aggressive goals for alternative energy.

How does that follow?

Cool down and solidify the caldera by extracting heat via geothermal energy use!

Heh... I wonder how much of the USA you could power by extracting energy from that thing?

Unfortunately it's a park, so you'd have to find a way to do it very unobtrusively. Maybe tunnel and drill into it from outside the park? Call the Boring Company. :)

If someone could cook up a truly credible plan to defuse that bomb over a century or three, environmental concerns could be sidestepped.

There was a novel written on exactly that idea. In the story this idea results in exactly what the above poster was proposing to avoid.

http://prosecraft.io/library/robby-akart/yellowstone-hellfir...

Yea except for one problem. You can’t possibly predict what the caldera would do when you interact with it because we can’t simulate it with any model we currently have. You could cause it to erupt in the process of trying to extract energy or cool it

Our current energy sources would be in jeopardy during the aftermath.

I once curiously asked this to Richard Campbell after a couple great Geek Out podcasts on geothermal & super volcanoes.

I was told the difficulty in volcanoes vs other popular geothermal sources is that volcanoes are an "unstable magma chamber" which makes it very difficult, expensive & risky.

Of course if this could be perfected, it could be a huge source of energy not just on Earth but places like Mars as well.

It'd be awesome if we could use that heat to generate electricity. All the planet's needs wouldn't make a dent in calming down the supervolcano but, at least, there would be free energy for everyone.

I wonder how effective it'd be for desalination.

We can, although I don't know how effective it is to do so from a volcano. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect

Those things are extremely inefficient. Here is how it is done.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power

If I remember correctly, continuously extracting a few gigawatts of heat out of the volcano would be enough to stabilize the Yellowstone area.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170817-nasas-ambitious-...

This might be the report that the coverage refers to: https://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov/sites/default/file...

What about the one under Naples which given the immediate population centers would seem more urgent to diffuse and defuse.

I had exactly this thought recently when relatives watched a documentary about volcanoes!

The same tech could be used, more or less, on pretty much any volcano.

Sure! Iceland for example has so much geothermal energy that they can clear their sidewalks from snow by heating them. Amazing, isn't it? (Searching for "iceland heated sidewalk" should bring up enough results if you are interested)

I'm thinking it may be a good idea to tap those thermal sources' energy to make ice to replenish melting glaciers.

There’s a Science vs. Podcast which pretty much defuses the fears around this volcano. I’m not sure if it’s completely correct, but a guy who actually measures and observes the volcano says it’s not a concern and if it was, we’d probably know well in advance.

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/8wh748k

Supervolcanoes and asteroid collisions are good reasons to support nuclear power, not just solar, as a diverse energy source. What happens if the sun gets blocked out?

> What happens if the sun gets blocked out?

We all starve to death.

I guess if we have nuclear we will still be able to pass the time coding whilst we starve.

Or nuke everyone else to get their food supplies.

https://what-if.xkcd.com/49/

If can make enough electricity we could make our own light to grow plants.

Significant portion of population will starve though. But energy unused by them could help grow food for remaining fraction.

If significant portion of the population starts starving then there will be all out wars, social instability, chaos, anarchy and whatnot. This could send us back to the stone age.

Well, yes, but a few working power plants would make the situation a bit better for as long as we can still maintain them, wouldn't they?

What's your contingency plan, everyone commits suicide the day the volcano erupts?

I don't have one, and it's not my job to. All I know is that civil order is a very fragile thing. We saw how things evolved with covid. A virus with a 0.2% fatality rate was enough to bring the worst recession in recent history, millions of dead, and hospitals to the brink of collapse. What do you think would happen if suddenly half the world's population can't find food to survive? They'll sit back and wait while you develop your contingency plan, or they will fight for their survival with all means in their disposal? In case of nations this means an all out war.

I mostly agree, but:

> A virus with a 0.2% fatality rate was enough to bring the worst recession in recent history, millions of dead, and hospitals to the brink of collapse.

The worst recession in recent history? I regard 2008 as recent, and as a recession, this is definitely not worse than that was.

The writing is on the wall. We just have to wait a few months for the shockwave to reach us. A lot of small businesses that closed due to lockdowns won't open again, especially in the entertainment industry.

I actually can't tell if this is satire. Well done!

I'm not sure nuclear power plants would be able to handle that kind of assault...

Also, you kind need complex societies to function to not have them melt down. After a super volcano or asteroid collision, that one could be dicey.

We can burn coal for thousands of years. Thankfully nobody will care about emissions anymore.

Things that would screw up if the sun got blocked: all photosynthesizing life, the hydrological cycle (it would freeze solid), the atmosphere (it would precipitate out).

Merely having a fallback power solution would be the least of our problems.

Except we could produce food using artificial light, melt water, and evaporate the frozen atmosphere.

That list - especially the last item - would take orders of magnitude more power than has ever been available from any human-engineered source.

I meant locally for local use, not globally. We’d basically be living on a sunless Mars except with a lot more resources.

I'm not sure how you'd bootstrap any of the measures you describe in an environment of extreme environmental hostility and complete societal breakdown. Reads like futurism blind to practical reality.

We should start now.

Yeah, in vast airtight geothermally heated caverns that don't yet exist, using a closed cycle ark-ship ecology that has neither been perfected nor really even seriously tried, and with an "outside" that would be as ferociously hostile to human life as the surface of Pluto.

Good anime setting, not really a plausible human future.

The atmosphere would turn into liquid.

I'm a fan of nuclear power, but if the sun gets blocked out, nuclear isn't going to help you. Sure you'll keep your lights on, for a short time, and you get to watch total environmental and civilization collapse.

I think temperature on earth would eventually drop to a few kelvin. The earth’s heat and heat generated by the moon’s gravity stretching the planet would increase that, initially, but I doubt it would be over 100 kelvin. That’s not cold or even cold cold, but cold³. If there still would be oceans, they would be a mix of nitrogen and oxygen.

I’m not sure living on it would be much easier than living in space. You would have better radiation protection and more raw materials, but staying warm might be harder.

I think air pressure (the weight of air above us at sea-level) compresses the air sufficiently for it to reach a temperature much greater than you would expect, e.g around negative 20 degrees Celsius.

(This figure needs verification, I'm going from memory).

But earth would still be radiating out heat, would it? If so, where would the energy come from to maintain that temperature?

Not gonna lie, this is my low key fear lol.

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