Yellowstone Supervolcano

• Kingofrunes wrote on 2014-04-13 17:16

  Quote from Yoorah;1214709:

  Probably. [S]Because nukes are more fun.[/S] Controlling oil and gas wells is incomparably easier than controlling pressures caused by tectonic plate activity, man. If you weaken the layers of rock above a hotspot by drilling through it or fracking it, it would probably just explode. Not to mention that drilling through magma is essentially impossible, as drilling fluid tends to explode on contact with the molten rock. Extracting magma is also virtually impossible, as it would likely solidify on its way up and clog the well.
  
  In the end, controlling something like this is impossible. The only way to deal with it, as I see it, is to trigger an explosion when (hopefully) it hasn't built up maximum pressure yet and everyone is ready for and expecting the damage. But then the question is if it would perhaps be better to wait for it to explode on its own and give our technology more time to evolve. I mean, it probably won't explode in the coming thousands of years, anyway. Let someone else deal with it. :P

  
  
  I think the biggest problem to be deal with is the ash. Eliminate the ash problem and the chances of humanities survival increases 10 fold. finding the technology to get rid of all the ash in the atmosphere will be a difficult one indeed but if it can be solved, sunlight will be able to reach earth and global temperatures will hopefully not plummet.
• Odin wrote on 2014-04-13 17:31

  Quote from Yoorah;1214709:

  Probably. [S]Because nukes are more fun.[/S] Controlling oil and gas wells is incomparably easier than controlling pressures caused by tectonic plate activity, man. If you weaken the layers of rock above a hotspot by drilling through it or fracking it, it would probably just explode. Not to mention that drilling through magma is essentially impossible, as drilling fluid tends to explode on contact with the molten rock. Extracting magma is also virtually impossible, as it would likely solidify on its way up and clog the well.
  
  In the end, controlling something like this is impossible. The only way to deal with it, as I see it, is to trigger an explosion when (hopefully) it hasn't built up maximum pressure yet and everyone is ready for and expecting the damage. But then the question is if it would perhaps be better to wait for it to explode on its own and give our technology more time to evolve. I mean, it probably won't explode in the coming thousands of years, anyway. Let someone else deal with it. :P

  
  
  They have tried to drill into tectonic zones and inject lubricant to change where earthquakes would likely happen. It didn't trigger a massive quake, nor did it prevent minor ones. In fact it ultimately did nothing at all.
  
  What I am envisioning is a system where we use a drill rig to effectively create a manmade lava tube. That lava tube can then be safely directed into surface processing equipment to allow us to chop up the output and carry it away.
  
  You'd lose maybe one square mile of the park to the wellhead, process plant, and shipping yard. But it could preserve the rest of the park intact- and even the bulk of the continent.
  
  Not only that, but the materials refined out of the lava could be sold and used to improve funding for the national parks service, having a nationwide benefit.
  
  Its just a question of can we induce a lava tube to form in a predictable manner. If anyone knows the answer to this, it would probably be researchers in Hawaii, where they regularly have to steer lava away from civilized areas and direct it into the ocean for disposal.