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?
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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. :)
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
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.
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)
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’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.
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[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 114 ms ] threadWe all starve to death.
Significant portion of population will starve though. But energy unused by them could help grow food for remaining fraction.
What's your contingency plan, everyone commits suicide the day the volcano erupts?
> 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.
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.
Merely having a fallback power solution would be the least of our problems.
Good anime setting, not really a plausible human future.
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.
(This figure needs verification, I'm going from memory).
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.
/s
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. :)
http://prosecraft.io/library/robby-akart/yellowstone-hellfir...
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.
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...
I wonder how effective it'd be for desalination.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power
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...
Sure, it's still hot, especially by our fragile human standards, but it's not going to go "BOOM".
https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/8wh748k