<story><title>Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?</title><url>https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/could-we-stop-yellowstone-from-erupting</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>its_ethan</author><text>&amp;quot;If heat could be bled off of the magma chambers, cooling and solidifying them, not only would that stop the volcano from erupting...&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Where does the confidence to make this claim come from?&lt;p&gt;I can imagine that the consequence of this might actually just be strengthening the &amp;quot;barrier&amp;quot; the magma has to erupt through, and when it finally builds up enough energy to do that, it&amp;#x27;ll be stronger in proportion to how strong the newly cooled down barrier had become? Unless the suggestion is that we could effectively bleed out ALL the heat from that system? Seems a bit unlikely imo lol&lt;p&gt;Still, geothermal sounds really cool and we should do more of it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>elil17</author><text>I have a lot of skepticism about anything I read from constructionphysics.substack.com. I&amp;#x27;m a mechanical engineer, not a civil engineer, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but it reads like it&amp;#x27;s written by someone who does not have a solid understanding of engineering fundamentals. For example, they suggested in their &amp;quot;How to design a house to last for 1,000 years&amp;quot; series that you&amp;#x27;d want to build such a house out of stainless steel because it &amp;quot;has extremely high corrosion resistance.&amp;quot; Even my introductory courses in materials science it is very clear that stainless steel &lt;i&gt;might&lt;/i&gt; last for 1,000 years, but it would depend entirely on the environmental conditions and the type of stainless used.</text></comment>
<story><title>Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?</title><url>https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/could-we-stop-yellowstone-from-erupting</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>its_ethan</author><text>&amp;quot;If heat could be bled off of the magma chambers, cooling and solidifying them, not only would that stop the volcano from erupting...&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Where does the confidence to make this claim come from?&lt;p&gt;I can imagine that the consequence of this might actually just be strengthening the &amp;quot;barrier&amp;quot; the magma has to erupt through, and when it finally builds up enough energy to do that, it&amp;#x27;ll be stronger in proportion to how strong the newly cooled down barrier had become? Unless the suggestion is that we could effectively bleed out ALL the heat from that system? Seems a bit unlikely imo lol&lt;p&gt;Still, geothermal sounds really cool and we should do more of it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sp332</author><text>The linked JPL proposal is exploratory and, while it has a more serious engineering perspective, it does not have &amp;quot;confidence&amp;quot;. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;documents&amp;#x2F;DefendingCivilizationFromSupervolcanos20151015.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;file...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The USGS is very unconvinced. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.usgs.gov&amp;#x2F;faqs&amp;#x2F;can-we-drill-yellowstone-stop-it-erupting&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.usgs.gov&amp;#x2F;faqs&amp;#x2F;can-we-drill-yellowstone-stop-it-e...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>