WOW NASA plans to FRACK Yellowstone Supervolcano 4 Geothermal! What could go wrong?

originally posted by: TheJesuit
Damn they got me good!! lol i really thought it was recent and since it was the first time i saw this asinine "plan" it blew my mind HAHAHA they got me good

To Quote from Guardians or the Galaxy "Aww Now i look foolish!"

No, the ones who made it up are obviously the foolish ones.

I have done this before on ATS too, though (posted something that turned out to be an internet hoax). Happens to the best of us sometimes.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: TheJesuit

Just a couple of points of order here.

The technique they suggested is not fracking, which is a bastardisation of fracturing, as in hydraulic fracturing, which is the process of forcing water into the Earth, to fracture shale underground, releasing gas trapped within the rock, in order to then collect the gas when it emerges from the shale.

No, this is actually quite different. Where as fracking seeks draw a fuel from the ground, so that it can be transported to elsewhere, sold off to whomever as would like to buy it, the technique involved in this NASA idea is somewhat different. The notion seems to be that injecting relatively hot water at high pressure, would result in a slow, controlled, cooling effect over a long period (and when I say long, I mean on a geological scale of time), as well as having an interesting by product, that being the heat ejected from the system, which could replace between five and six regular power plants in terms of its energy output, providing power for tens, or even hundreds of thousands of years.

The idea behind this however is to cool the volcano slowly enough that it no longer poses a threat, slowly enough that no thermal shock event causes catastrophe, but cools it enough to reduce the pressure at its head, and over time calm the region down well enough that no more threat issues therefrom, over tens of thousands, perhaps a hundred thousand years.

Now, I am not saying that this is necessarily a good idea, and there are some pretty significant risks associated with the plan, not least of which is the potential for the plan to backfire and accelerate the inevitable explosion of Yellowstone... But, that explosive eruption is not just a possibility, or something that may potentially happen. It is something that will, without fail, occur at some stage. When it inevitably does occur, the damage that it will do, which has been detailed repeatedly on these boards and gone over at enormous length, will come to pass. This will happen if we do nothing, for an absolute certainty, if left to its own devices.

To put that into some perspective, we are talking about an event that will up end everything from the chemical composition of our atmosphere in the short term, to altering crop growth cycles and growing seasons in length and timing, changing the temperature dynamic in the atmosphere, as well as causing an explosion that will shred unimaginable amounts of land, cost the lives of millions before you can say "Oh daaaaayum!" and, basically decapitate the American continent entirely. This will be an event on a par with a comet impact, something we simply have not seen since civilisation really kicked off. It will make Pompeii look like an M80 firecracker, make even the mighty Krakatoa eruption seem like an irrelevance in comparison. Its more than likely that if it kicks off as a detonation first, the blast alone will travel around the world multiple times. It will rain brimstone and fire for thousands of miles in every direction, as well as launching ash deposits in vast quantity, into the air.

We have seen devastation from volcanic eruptions before. Mt. St Helens, various eruptions in nations and on islands in the Ring of Fire. We see these tiny islands populations running for their lives, and say to ourselves "Well, I feel bad for these people, and I want to help, but damn... I am glad I don't live there!!". The detonation of Yellowstone is not an event that we will be able to say this of, because its effects will be felt all over the world. Much smaller explosions than Yellowstone is brewing up to, have had global effects, but nothing like Yellowstone has happened in recorded human history. There was no civilisation, last time something like Yellowstone happened, so we are way out in the weeds when it comes to the threat posed. The Thera eruption was much smaller than Yellowstone will be. It was also so powerful that you would have to have between 40 and 50 Tsar Bombas, that is forty or fifty of the largest nukes ever tested, to replicate the force of the Thera eruption.

So, before you go off at NASA for thinking about mitigation for this event, you need to understand, that Yellowstone will go off without the effort concerned, that when it does America and everyone in it will be at best living in a kind of Mad Max wasteland, and at worst be VERY dead, and the globe will suffer inability to reliably produce crops as a result of rapid and extreme atmospheric disturbance as a result of the depositing of unimaginable quantities of earth and rock being blasted into the air and staying there. I cannot stress enough, that this could well be an extinction level threat to the species, depending on how it shakes out. Doing nothing means that this will come to pass at some stage. Waiting it out won't help, doing nothing GUARANTEES doom. Doing something merely comes with a percentile risk, reducing the potential for a mega eruption from certain, to merely possible. From the perspective of the species as a whole, and from the perspective of its survival for millions of years to come, doing something is more preferable than doing nothing.

This is NOT the same as fracking, not in the slightest. Fracking is meant PURELY to make money and causes ENORMOUS damage to the environment, the nature of which will likely only become clear in a little while, once the radioactive materials and the toxic chemicals that come up in the waste water, have found their way into the groundwater. Its a profit making exercise at the expense of habitats, ecologies and the health and safety of human beings exposed to the by products.

The NASA proposition is about saving lives, and may be a money maker as a by product. There is a massive difference in inspiration, method and motivation, and comparing them is no more sensible than comparing apples to oranges.

This plan may not be real, it may be a hoax, but SOMETHING needs doing at some stage, and we have to prepare for that.

I'm not smart enough to know if you have any idea what you're talking about but I gave you a star anyway because it was well written.

a reply to: BrianFlanders

Geology is one of my first loves, in terms of the sciences.

I appreciate the star!

The thing is going to go anyway. Drill baby drill!

originally posted by: TheJesuit
So NASA has plans to drill into YELLOWSTONE SUPER VOLCANO for Geo thermal energy but it'll be really " Competitive -aka CHEAP" LOL HEARD THAT BEFORE!!

Brian Wilcox of the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab: Wilcox also remarked that the drilling project must be handled with utmost care as a slightest mistake might actually trigger the eruption the scientists are trying to prevent.

a powerful supervolcano eruption might trigger a “prolonged volcanic winter”, with the resulting crop failure putting mankind on the brink of starvation as “food reserves worldwide would last 74 days”,

So this is how they plan population reduction- following the Georgia Guide stones requirements?

Just take a good look at the EQ's in the mid west recently 10-20 years worth analysis or even more - see the recent increase around all the fracking sites??
These greedy bastards know no bounds, no regard for the environment! You don't mess with a super volcano period end of story!! The RISK Well out weighs the potential reward.....IDIOTS there's Global risk here as well not just the USA...

HOW DO WE STOP THESE IDIOTS FROM BLOWING UP OUR WORLD just look at What happened in FL at Deep Water Horizon Drilling platform ?

www.zerohedge.com...

Hilarious... literally just read a post-apocalyptic fiction book about this very scenario. Government decides to drill for energy and winds up causing yellowstone to erupt.

Zerohedge. Articles by morons for the gullible.

a reply to: TheJesuit

The government wanted to bomb the moon a few decades back as a show of force to the Soviets.

These people are cracked.

originally posted by: Lagomorphe
Ever stuck a needle in a big zit?

Yellowstone is underlain by two magma bodies.

The shallower one is composed of rhyolite (a high-silica rock type) and stretches from 5 km to about 17 km beneath the surface and is about 90 km long and about 40 km wide.

The chamber is mostly solid, with only about 5-15% melt. The deeper reservoir is composed of basalt (a low-silica rick type) and extends from 20 km to 50 km beneath the surface.

Even though the deeper chamber is about 4.5 times larger than the shallow chamber, it contains only about 2% melt.

Linkywink here : www.usgs.gov...-

David Mencin and Glen Mattioli, geodesists with UNAVCO, say “the strain signal is larger than would be expected if the crust under Yellowstone were completely solid”.

Link : www.express.co.uk...

That is one big puss splatter if that thing is popped manually!

Lags

It would be fun if they drilled through that plug of solid rock. Look at what happened with that oil rig n the Gulf of Mexico. Not even emergency blow-out preventers could operate fast enough to work against 120,000 psi

originally posted by: charlyv
Gives new meaning to "Poke it with a stick".
Never seems to go well for the poker.

refraining...from...dirty...joke...

...

Sorry to bump this thread but I was wondering whether or not anything had suggested the use of volcanoes as an energy source, so I did a search and found this thread from only a month ago. It seems to me volcanoes would be an extremely good source of energy, just stick some long rods into the ground which are made for conducting heat, you then attach a steam turbine to those rods and use the heat to turn the turbine and generate power.

Nuclear reactors use steam turbines, the nuclear reaction generates the heat. A volcano like Yellowstone would hold an immense amount of thermal energy which could be sapped over time by building multiple steam turbine generators which draw heat up to the surface through thermal conductors. You could probably power a several states with that sort of power, also it's completely clean energy and helps defuse a threat to human civilization.