<story><title>Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a geothermal power plant?</title><url>https://www.construction-physics.com/p/could-we-stop-yellowstone-from-erupting</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Maxion</author><text>We&amp;#x27;ll except the fact that deep geothermal plants are completely theoretic as a means of production - the final cost of power is a big ???.&lt;p&gt;Most people want cheap power. Anything over around 20 cents a kWh makes it uncompetitive to fossile equivalents (e.g. wood &amp;#x2F; oil &amp;#x2F; gas heating).</text></item><item><author>pacificmint</author><text>Plus you’d take a great step towards solving our energy problems.</text></item><item><author>jconnop</author><text>In the article it&amp;#x27;s said the proposal already included 160 plants in a big ring around yellowstone, resulting in the 16,000 years figure.&lt;p&gt;So to get it down to 100 years you&amp;#x27;d need 160^2 = 25,600 geothermal plants.&lt;p&gt;Perfectly reasonable, let&amp;#x27;s do it.</text></item><item><author>michaelbrave</author><text>half jokingly I thought &amp;quot;so we just need 160 power plants to bring it down to 100 years&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>ceejayoz</author><text>&amp;gt; At this rate, the energy of the next eruption would be drained after about 16,000 years, and in less than 50,000 years the magma chamber would be cooled completely.&lt;p&gt;Iceland&amp;#x27;s event is much smaller, but we&amp;#x27;re not talking about the sort of thing that you can implement in a year.</text></item><item><author>chongli</author><text>It’s a shame this was written earlier this year. In Iceland there’s an ongoing magma intrusion event near (and under) the town of Grindavik. There also happens to be a geothermal power plant not far from the town.&lt;p&gt;The progression of this magma intrusion, particularly beneath the power plant itself, seems like it should provide a valuable case study to test the idea presented by this article. If there ends up being an eruption under that power plant we might learn something about the advantages and potential pitfalls of this proposal.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ben_w</author><text>Not only does it already exist, it&amp;#x27;s cheap enough that Kenya has some and wants more: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Geothermal_power_in_Kenya&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Geothermal_power_in_Kenya&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Judging by the price tag of 9.1 Ksh&amp;#x2F;kWh listed on &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Energy_in_Kenya&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Energy_in_Kenya&lt;/a&gt; (and looking up historical exchange rates because of the date of the link and their persistent inflation), that&amp;#x27;s about 0.085-0.090 USD&amp;#x2F;kWh.</text></comment>
<story><title>Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a geothermal power plant?</title><url>https://www.construction-physics.com/p/could-we-stop-yellowstone-from-erupting</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Maxion</author><text>We&amp;#x27;ll except the fact that deep geothermal plants are completely theoretic as a means of production - the final cost of power is a big ???.&lt;p&gt;Most people want cheap power. Anything over around 20 cents a kWh makes it uncompetitive to fossile equivalents (e.g. wood &amp;#x2F; oil &amp;#x2F; gas heating).</text></item><item><author>pacificmint</author><text>Plus you’d take a great step towards solving our energy problems.</text></item><item><author>jconnop</author><text>In the article it&amp;#x27;s said the proposal already included 160 plants in a big ring around yellowstone, resulting in the 16,000 years figure.&lt;p&gt;So to get it down to 100 years you&amp;#x27;d need 160^2 = 25,600 geothermal plants.&lt;p&gt;Perfectly reasonable, let&amp;#x27;s do it.</text></item><item><author>michaelbrave</author><text>half jokingly I thought &amp;quot;so we just need 160 power plants to bring it down to 100 years&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>ceejayoz</author><text>&amp;gt; At this rate, the energy of the next eruption would be drained after about 16,000 years, and in less than 50,000 years the magma chamber would be cooled completely.&lt;p&gt;Iceland&amp;#x27;s event is much smaller, but we&amp;#x27;re not talking about the sort of thing that you can implement in a year.</text></item><item><author>chongli</author><text>It’s a shame this was written earlier this year. In Iceland there’s an ongoing magma intrusion event near (and under) the town of Grindavik. There also happens to be a geothermal power plant not far from the town.&lt;p&gt;The progression of this magma intrusion, particularly beneath the power plant itself, seems like it should provide a valuable case study to test the idea presented by this article. If there ends up being an eruption under that power plant we might learn something about the advantages and potential pitfalls of this proposal.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>soco</author><text>In theory the cost of the whole thing blowing up should offset this investment costs but Don&amp;#x27;t Look Up (2021) convincing the folk about potential natural disasters.</text></comment>