NASA plan to save Mankind from Yellowstone supervolcano

NASA plan to save Mankind from Yellowstone supervolcano

Brian Wilcox, an ex-member of the NASA Advisory Council on Planetary Defence, made the horrifying revelation while discussing a report by the space agency.

He said that NASA’s “risky” proposals to prevent an eruption could go wrong with possibly disastrous consequences.

Am I the only one that thinks this is either insane doom porn or the workings of the mind of a madman?

One of the methods would be to drill into the bottom of the United States volcano and to use a pressurized spurt of water to release heat from the magma chamber.

Sounds pretty sketchy to me.

“If you drill into the top of the magma chamber and try and cool it from there, this would be very risky,” he said.

“This could make the cap over the magma chamber more brittle and prone to fracture. And you might trigger the release of harmful volatile gases in the magma at the top of the chamber which would otherwise not be released.”

Or kick start the whole eruption?

But Mr Wilcox warned it is clear something must be done about Yellowstone.

Just remember, it's not nice to fool mother nature.

Shouldn't there be laws against this kind of thing? Really. What right do they have to put the whole of the USA (world?) at risk just to see if it can be done?

SMH

peace

a reply to: silo13

Because it's like a staring contest with a poisonous snake, you can wait for the snake to move first or take a shot at it before it kills you.
The question isn't if it will erupt, just when.

Well the daily star is a tabloid, soooo I wouldn't worry about it. Plus the article says it was a proposal and I'm sure there has been all kinds of weird proposals. Stop taking tabloids seriously.

Yellowstone is overdue for an eruption.

When it happens it could kill 100s of millions or even billions depending on the far reaching effects.


I hope our scientists have some plans on how to alleviate the threat.

a reply to: silo13

It could be a way forward in our search for clean energy , the plan is outlined in more detail Here

“Yellowstone currently leaks around 6GW in heat,” Wilcox says. “Through drilling in this way, it could be used to create a geothermal plant, which generates electric power at extremely competitive prices of around $0.10/kWh. You would have to give the geothermal companies incentives to drill somewhat deeper and use hotter water than they usually would, but you would pay back your initial investment, and get electricity which can power the surrounding area for a period of potentially tens of thousands of years. And the long-term benefit is that you prevent a future supervolcano eruption which would devastate humanity.”

Wilcox says. “If you drill into the top of the magma chamber and try and cool it from there, this would be very risky. This could make the cap over the magma chamber more brittle and prone to fracture. And you might trigger the release of harmful volatile gases in the magma at the top of the chamber which would otherwise not be released.”

Instead, the idea is to drill in from the supervolcano from the lower sides, starting outside the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park, and extracting the heat from the underside of the magma chamber. “This way you’re preventing the heat coming up from below from ever reaching the top of the chamber which is where the real threat arises,” Wilcox says.

However those who instigate such a project will never see it to completion, or even have an idea whether it might be successful within their lifetime. Cooling Yellowstone in this manner would happen at a rate of one metre a year, taking of the order of tens of thousands of years until just cold rock was left.

It would be a risky enterprise but the plan is in its early stages and if such a plan were to be attempted I'd imagine decades would pass before an attempt would be started.

It's bound to blow at some point so perhaps nothing ventured nothing gained ?

Brian Wilcox NASA Bio

originally posted by: Grimpachi
Yellowstone is overdue for an eruption.

When it happens it could kill 100s of millions or even billions depending on the far reaching effects.


I hope our scientists have some plans on how to alleviate the threat.

I say let nature take its course.

This planet is in a dire need of a good old fashioned purge methinks!

A natural reboot so to speak.

Warmest

Lags

Always thought superheated water was explosive?

a reply to: Plotus
Imagine the steam turbine that this "super volcano" could turn and in turn make clean electricity.

It requires energy to create heat. What is the source of the energy that produces the magma? It would be a better idea to eliminate the source or else the proposal will be a waste of tax dollars. Eliminating the source, which I deduce as friction from tectonic plate motion, would not be possible with today's or tomorrow's technology.

The proposal presented is an idiotic idea at best.

The government wanted to nuke the moon way back too.

The purpose was to scare the Soviets.

That doesn't make either a good idea.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Just because we CAN do something doesn't mean we should.

But, when a volcano erupts, what causes the explosion is the magma interacting with water. So they want to feed the volcano water?

Yes, mad scientists at work. Of course they will say it would have been much worse if they did nothing, they have learned from the doctors giving out meds with side effects. There is no proof it would not be worse if nothing is done once you did it.

NASA explores space, for one. Two, actually drilling into an active magma chamber is impossible. Even if you did, the hole is too small to effect an eruption, the heat and pressure would melt the drilling apparatus long before it actually penetrated actual magma. All the rock at that depth is plastic, hot, and fluid. Especially above the magma.

If they were somehow able to get near the roof of the chamber at a weak 'spot' (the magma chamber below yellowstone is 7 miles by 50 miles) then insert a nuke and detonate it... who knows.

Daily Star is a terrible news source they are low grade porno news.

But I guess the only saving grace about a potential Yellowstone eruption is that Yellowstone is in America.

How many more Billions will this cost the tax payer again?

I can't see this happening any more than Al Gores idea of global warming being a real thing.

a reply to: ADSE255

They estimate it would cost around $3.5bn , most of that would be picked up by energy companies so not that much in the scale of things.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: ADSE255

They estimate it would cost around $3.5bn , most of that would be picked up by energy companies so not that much in the scale of things.

Looks like a sales pitch to acquire more money from the people and businesses. Science does use this tactic a lot to get funding to keep their scientists working.

originally posted by: intrptr


NASA explores space, for one. Two, actually drilling into an active magma chamber is impossible. Even if you did, the hole is too small to effect an eruption, the heat and pressure would melt the drilling apparatus long before it actually penetrated actual magma. All the rock at that depth is plastic, hot, and fluid. Especially above the magma.

If they were somehow able to get near the roof of the chamber at a weak 'spot' (the magma chamber below yellowstone is 7 miles by 50 miles) then insert a nuke and detonate it... who knows.

If ti was possible using liquid nitrogen or inserting some kind of self replicating heat powered reaction to convert the magma into something thicker might help. Introduce heavier elements into it.

a reply to: SudoNim

But I guess the only saving grace about a potential Yellowstone eruption is that Yellowstone is in America.

What happens in Yellowstone doesn't stay in Yellowstone , Mount St. Helens had an effect on or weather in the UK and that eruption was small beans compared to what Yellowstone would do when it goes.

a reply to: silo13

Think about this...

Here are our options..

1 ) attempt to deal with it and risk setting it off early..


2) the US is destroyed by fire when it erupts...



We know it erupts every 750,000 years right??? And we know we are passed due..

a reply to: yuppa

I am hugely sceptical we even could produce enough cold to effect it.. the scale is insane.

However we do need to begin brainstorming