Pouring Water Into a Volcano To Generate Power 321
Hugh Pickens writes "Until recently, geothermal power systems have exploited only resources where naturally occurring heat, water, and rock permeability are sufficient to allow energy extraction. Now, geothermal energy developers plan use a new technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) to pump 24 million gallons of water into the side of the dormant Newberrry Volcano, located about 20 miles south of Bend, Oregon, in an effort to use the earth's heat to generate power. 'We know the heat is there,' says Susan Petty, president of AltaRock Energy, Inc. of Seattle. 'The big issue is can we circulate enough water through the system to make it economic.' Since natural cracks and pores do not allow economic flow rates, the permeability of the volcanic rock can be enhanced with EGS by pumping high-pressure cold water down an injection well into the rock, creating tiny fractures in the rock, a process known as hydroshearing. Then cold water is pumped down production wells into the reservoir, and the steam is drawn out. Natural geothermal resources only account for about 0.3 percent of U.S. electricity production, but a 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology report projected EGS could bump that to 10 percent within 50 years, at prices competitive with fossil-fuels. 'The important question we need to answer now,' says USGS geophysicist Colin Williams, 'is how geothermal fits into the renewable energy picture, and how EGS fits. How much it is going to cost, and how much is available.'"
Not just that (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not throwing the waste there instead of the landfill?
Re:Not just that (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this would be a great idea if it could work. The problem would most likely be polution. There is also the political issues of the fact that burning trash would emit CO2. I personaly think AGW is a load of crap, but I do recognize that some people would feel it important enough to bring the government down on this practice.
The other problem is that wouldn't want everything that goes into a landfill being burned and put into the atmosphere, quite a lot would be toxic. I think that if you started seperating what's OK from what's bad, you'd end up with a pile of landfill waste, a pile of recyclable items, and a very small if not nonexistant pile of volcano fuel.
Plus there shouldn't be any need. If what I've read is correct, the energy created by the (inactive)volcano would far surpass our ability to extract energy.
Re:Not just that (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget AGW - though I don't agree with you on that (that's another discussion)
The real problem is that when you indiscriminately burn junk like plastics and other long-chain polymers, you end up with dioxins and furans. Those are some seriously toxic chemicals coming out of that mix. It's essentially burning an unholy mess of everything known to man that we ever throw out. Any of those toxins get into the water supply somewhere, you've got SERIOUS problems!
And why burn the compostable solids, anyway? We've got a better use for them; really composting, and then using the compost as manure for our gardens and farmlands...
Re:Not just that (Score:4, Informative)
The same reason you don't burn them: air pollution.
Re:Not just that (Score:4, Interesting)
Why not use the volcano as a heat source for gasification and thermal depolymerisation then?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Not just that (Score:5, Informative)
Newberry crater isn't like a volcano in the movies.. the caldera at the top has two lakes, a resort, campgrounds, etc. There is also a very large obsidian lava flow (100 feet of glass rocks, its pretty cool).. It also has awesome views from the top. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newberry_Volcano [wikipedia.org]
Re:Not just that (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact, there are very few places in the world (I believe it's seven) where there are exposed, persistent lava lakes. They're very rare. I believe the list is Erta Ale (Ethiopia); Nyiragongo (Congo); Erebus (Antarctica, offshore island) ; Saunders (South Sandwich Islands); Villarrica (Chile); Kilauea (Hawaii); and Marum (Vanuatu). It's one of my dreams to someday climb the volcano on Saunders and see the lava lake at the summit; as far as I am aware, nobody has ever done so (its existence is inferred from the presence of a persistent steam cloud and satellite thermal imaging, but it's a very remote, inhospitable location; to even get there, you have to charter an oceangoing yacht and do a difficult landing in an inflatable boat, timed to the waves, onto rocky cliffs, in the middle of the South Atlantic).
No, drilling into a magma chamber doesn't trigger an eruption. A tiny borehole isn't nearly enough of a weakness (remember also that it's not so much a "hole"; it's a tube full of "mud" with roughly the same density as the surrounding rock, so the pressure is equalized). They accidentally drilled into a magma chamber in Krafla (Iceland) at one point. The magma filled up the bottom couple dozen meters of the bore before semi-solidifying. Not sure what to do, they tried starting injecting water, and it actually worked; they're now producing steam from it and are considering drilling more such holes intentionally (they had previously tried to avoid the magma).
They're going to frack a Volcano? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They're going to frack a Volcano? (Score:5, Insightful)
Part of me agrees with you; however, another part of me thinks that until we try, we'll never know whether our fears are just that, fears.
So I, for one, think we should consider it.
Re:They're going to frack a Volcano? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't want a profit driven corporation in charge of something like this. They'll have an interest in making it work no matter if there are warning signs or risks.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
At least you can sue the corporation when they fuck up. good luck with the government
yea (Score:5, Insightful)
what happened when bp fucked up the entire mexico gulf ecosystem ?
Re:yea (Score:5, Interesting)
And no one's gone to the trouble of modeling what happens when you chill down part of a lava dome. Does it harden, then blow sky high? Does it pressure masses underneath the caldera to cause nice earthquakes? Do you get a nice fissure opening up somewhere else to flow the lava into new and vulnerable areas? How long before the solidification means you have drill new spots? How are you going to stabilize the old spots? I don't think there are any lava-eating bacteria to help save the day here. There is nothing we have that's going to repair a newly active caldera. Look at what St Helens did, just a few miles up the road. Talk about playing with matches....
Re:yea (Score:5, Interesting)
And no one's gone to the trouble of modeling what happens when you chill down part of a lava dome. Does it harden, then blow sky high? Does it pressure masses underneath the caldera to cause nice earthquakes? Do you get a nice fissure opening up somewhere else to flow the lava into new and vulnerable areas? How long before the solidification means you have drill new spots? How are you going to stabilize the old spots? I don't think there are any lava-eating bacteria to help save the day here. There is nothing we have that's going to repair a newly active caldera. Look at what St Helens did, just a few miles up the road. Talk about playing with matches....
Are you making the question in the rhetorical sense because you know for a fact that no one is doing just that, or are you asking the question because that is what you are assuming?
Re: (Score:3)
There's a lot of speculation, but I haven't seen any hard research. Geology and geothermal isn't my discipline. I have an active interest in geothermal energy and other alternative (e.g. non-petrochemical) energy forms as an engineer and consumer. Few attempts have been made to harness steam in this method (Icelanders lead the research, but the volume is very small).
Icelanders have some experience (Score:4, Interesting)
During the Westmann Islands eruption, they froze the leading edge of the lava flow to divert it from blocking a harbor. The lava just goes somewhere else.
They estimate that geothermal fields are good for 50-100 years.
Volcano != Lava Flow (Score:3)
Injecting high pressure water into rocks around a dormant volcano is different. First there is no initial danger - the volcano is dormant and not erupting - so the consequences of a mistake are bad. Second you are
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
what happened when bp fucked up the entire mexico gulf ecosystem ?
They did the only thing logical, and sued another company (Halliburton)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/03/bp-sues-halliburton-over-deepwater [guardian.co.uk]
Re:yea (Score:4, Insightful)
That's nice, but the bar for "enough" is set too high.
Re:yea (Score:5, Insightful)
there is ?!?!!?! do you think gulf spill was the first dumbfounding disaster in corporate history ? what makes it any different now ?
- 2) Those private businesses that cause harm pay compensation for their harm
will that bring back 2000 or so dead people ?
- 3) Those businesses go away, if they cause enough harm.
did exxon mobil go away ? did pfizer go away after poisoning hundreds of thousands in india ? have bp gone away ?
Re:yea (Score:4, Insightful)
there is ?!?!!?! do you think gulf spill was the first dumbfounding disaster in corporate history ? what makes it any different now ?
No, nor will it be the last. One also has to consider the size, frequency, and duration of such accidents. For example, the Deepwater Horizon spill was stopped in a few short months. BP could have in the absence of regulation and liability, just ignored the spill (leaving it permanently on) and moved on.
Re:yea (Score:5, Funny)
Re:yea (Score:5, Insightful)
Somebody has to drill for oil, and they are going to create oil spills, that's just a fact of life. We (humans) try to do the best we can when weighing costs and benefits, and when we get it wrong, we try to correct it. But doing nothing because it might be too risky is just as bad as not regulating things at all.
I suspect BP and Exxon both had a much harder time getting new contracts, but in the end, there are few companies that can do these kinds of jobs. So what alternative do you suggest?
Re:yea (Score:4, Insightful)
Why should those companies go away? Shouldn't the punishment fit the crime (I don't consider any of the above serious crimes FYI either because they weren't that serious or didn't happen as in the case of Pfizer)? Or should we execute you when you jaywalk?
Entire ecosystems destroyed, livelihoods (for fishermen, for example) ruined, 200000 people poisoned in Bhopal,...
That's JAYWALKING ?
Union Carbide at the very least deserves execution (i.e., revocation of the corporate charter, maybe imprisonment of the top management on manslaughter charges).
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
did pfizer go away after poisoning hundreds
didn't happen as in the case of Pfizer
For both of you. [independent.co.uk]
Re: (Score:2)
Last time I checked, even $5 billion can't resurrect the dead after being buried alive in a boiling mud flow.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:They're going to frack a Volcano? (Score:5, Insightful)
At least you can sue the corporation when they fuck up. good luck with the government
You mean... there's a difference?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
But I would trust the government to be a lot more cautious, to perform more studies, and take less risks overall, because they don't have the same strict economical pressures that public companies have from shareholders. Would it retard "progress?" Likely. But at least we won't be drinking flammable water.
Re:They're going to frack a Volcano? (Score:5, Interesting)
I heard the same thing about the German V2 (Score:4, Interesting)
There were apparently theories that the upper atmosphere was uncombined hydrogen
and oxygen, and that there was a chance a V2 going high enough would set it off.
Lotta nerve there.
Re:I heard the same thing about the German V2 (Score:5, Funny)
There were apparently theories that the upper atmosphere was uncombined hydrogen and oxygen, and that there was a chance a V2 going high enough would set it off. Lotta nerve there.
They also must have thought that all those countless meteors must be really polite to respect the "no smoking" warnings every time they are flying throught that layer.
Re: (Score:3)
There is, just not enough to support combustion, how it happens is water vapor, being lighter than air rises and the ultravoilet light from the sun breaks it apart, then the hydrogen goes up even faster and the oxygen as O2 and O3 move downward. They think this is the mechanism that caused most of the Martian water to disappear.
Re:I heard the same thing about the German V2 (Score:4, Informative)
Photodissociation.
It happens all the time in the upper atmosphere due to high energy UV from the sun. The chemistry of the stratosphere is esoteric due to the low pressure and high energies involved.
It doesn't mean that *all* of the water vapour makes it up into the stratosphere to be split by this process, so there's plenty in the lower layers to form clouds.
Re:They're going to frack a Volcano? (Score:4, Informative)
He was joking. The possibility was first raised by Edward Teller, but it was ruled out long before the test by showing radiative losses exceeded energy production. The story goes that Oppenheimer mentioned it passing to Arthur Compton, who had the bad judgment to mention it to the Whitehouse. After that the scientists never heard the end of it
It's akin to a scientist at the LHC taking bets about ending the world through creation of a black hole.
Re: (Score:3)
That's not quite correct.
Yes, there were concerns raised about the effects of the tests on the atmosphere. So, they studied the problem and ran the numbers and found the concerns to be
Re: (Score:3)
I expect he was also mocking the stupidly fearful among them.
They were atomic scientists after all. They knew they couldn't prove a negative. But they also knew it wasn't going to 'ignite' the atmosphere.
Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
When the person representing the corporation in charge says something like this:
"We know the heat is there," said Susan Petty, president of AltaRock.
"The big issue is can we circulate enough water through the system to make it economic."
And the expert seismologist [scientificamerican.com] says something like this:
We've been monitoring [The Geysers] since 1975.
All the earthquakes we see there are [human] induced.
When they move production into a new area, earthquakes start there, and when they stop production, the earthquakes stop.
Well... You kinda have a reason to fear. [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Links above. There are there for your benefit, not to show that I know how to link.
Ok, so what are the links supposed to be telling me other than there are small quakes associated with this sort of project. I don't care about small quakes because small quakes don't damage anything. Big quakes cause damage. And those links tell me nothing about the likelihood of big quakes.
And that changes the part where corporations WILL ALWAYS set profit first how exactly?
Regulations change the behavior of the corporation since violation of regulation usually results in considerable loss of profit and possibly other serious penalties.
And you are aware that you are contradicting yourself?
On one side admitting that regulation is not a perfect or often even adequate solution, while on the other side you present it as a "solved problem".
No, and you aren't so aware either. Don't confuse regul
Re:They're going to frack a Volcano? (Score:5, Funny)
Look at it this way. It's a low emissions way to generate power which will help combat global warming.
OR
It will set off the volcano and release particles into the atmosphere which will combat global warming.
It's all good!
Re: (Score:3)
Might as well claim that a waterwheel makes a river flow faster.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
by pumping high-pressure cold water down an injection well into the rock, creating tiny fractures in the rock, a process known as hydroshearing.
They can't call it Fraking because all the folks in Oregon would come at them with torches scythes, and pitchforks.
Re: (Score:2)
What could possibly go wrong . . .
For example, mixing minerals with water tends to decrease their melting point, and the resulting hydrated magma tends to have lower viscosity, so there you have one possible Mount-Doom-like scenario in real life.
Re: (Score:2)
What could possibly go wrong . . .
For example, mixing minerals with water tends to decrease their melting point, and the resulting hydrated magma tends to have lower viscosity, so there you have one possible Mount-Doom-like scenario in real life.
It's only Portland. Calm down.
Re:They're going to frack a Volcano? (Score:5, Funny)
What could possibly go wrong . . .
Michael Bay is inspired for a new movie?
Re:They're going to frack a Volcano? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They're going to frack a Volcano? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand why many on slashdot are against this. We mock anti-nuclear power alarmists for blowing fears out of proportion, yet here we are saying "Oh no we shouldn't do this because there might be a catastrophe"
Re: (Score:3)
Uh... because nuclear reactors can be designed, modeled, and tested top to bottom and that's a rather hard thing to do with a volcano to ensure safety?
Re: (Score:3)
Pussies. Yellowstone is just sitting there doin nothing useful. If you're going to build a volcanic power station. build a fucking DOOMSDAY volcanic power station.
One way or the other, the US would be able to stop worrying about dependency on foreign oil.
One word: Krakatoa. (Score:3)
What could possibly go wrong . . .
One word: Krakatoa [wikipedia.org].
Three more: Mount Saint Hellens [wikipedia.org]
As I understand it, the explosion of the Krakatoa volcano was a steam explosion, caused by high-pressure ocean water coming into contact with lava deep underground, with the only way to release the pressure being to push the mountain into the air. The result was the loudest sound ever recorded: It was detectable on barographs world-wide.
The details of mountain explosions were something of a mystery until an "AHA!" moment
Water shortages? (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't RTFA, but with our projected water shortages coming in the future do we really want to be pumping millions of gallons for energy? Surely there's a better way to get usable energy.
Re:Water shortages? (Score:4, Insightful)
They could use salt water. Desalinating water is still fairly expensive, as far as I know, so that might not take away from the availability of drinkable water. Though what effect the salt would have on the process would have to be studied.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm. Still, salt water has salt in it. Corrosive salts. I wonder if the plumbing would be able to withstand it.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
They're putting water in and taking steam out. The salt is going to be left in the ground. And given there's a shortage of cracks and fissures down there already, that doesn't sound like a good thing.
Closed Loop System (Score:3)
The article describes a closed loop system, not one where they'd be simply dumping water down the pipe continuously from an infinate supply. Some volume of water is being pumped down, the water heated by the rock, the energy extracted, and then that same water being sent back down through the loop.
Re: (Score:3)
Water isn't a problem in Oregon, drainage is a more likely problem. The Pacific Northwest is rain forest, Pacific temperate rain forest [wikipedia.org] to be precise and they get about 2.5m of rain a year.
Re: (Score:3)
24 million gallons is just for testing purposes. If they actually develop the power they're going to need a lot more water than that. The area they are in is pretty arid and the only major source of water nearby is the Deschutes River. They might have to fight with irrigation districts over who gets it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We are not living in the future, but in the present. It's not like the freshwater we don't use will stay in reserve, they will flow in the sea eventually even if we don't use it so why not?
Re: (Score:3)
Don't worry, the water near there is not allowed to flow to the sea uninterrupted. The large river near the drilling site is the Deschutes river. From May to September over 80% of the water is taken out near Bend for irrigation. Further down near Madras is Round Butte Reservoir which catches water from the Deschutes, Crooked and Metolius rivers. Once the Deschutes reaches the Columbia River there are still The Dalles Dam and Bonneville Dam before it flows freely to the Pacific Ocean.
Re:Water shortages? (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as water "shortages", it's really a water distribution problem. There's plenty of fresh water flowing down rivers into the ocean. But people like to live in desert climates like Phoenix and Las Vegas where they don't have to worry about rainy days messing up the golf they play on irrigated fairways.
Re: (Score:3)
And if you had RTFA you would know that the plan involves recovering the steam, condensing it back to water to send back down. It is a mostly closed system. Their chief issue is whether or not they can get the steam back fast enough to keep the system going. Just throwing water in a volcano and letting the steam dissipate wouldn't actually generate any energy.
Re: (Score:2)
our projected water shortages
These shortages assume no improvements over desalination technology. In fact full scale desalination is already feasible today though the price of water would go up by a factor of 10x. Given how much we waste today (we literally flush it down the toilet) this is not as bad as it sounds.
Add in efforts in water conservation such as deploying drip irrigation everywhere and better recycling (see Las Vegas and Singapore for leading efforts in that regard) and frankly the whole water
opposite is true (Score:3)
pick a volcano near the coast, capture the steam, and you have electricity AND pure water. another benefit
Re: (Score:2)
If it works we can use water we would have used for coal power stations in any case. Plus it's nearly a closed loop system right?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
There is indeed a much better way to obtain huge quantities of usable energy. Waste less of it on unnecessary luxuries.
You breathing == unnecessary luxury. That pretty much sums up the problem with having someone decide what is a necessary thing and what is an unnecessary luxury.
Head to Hawaii... (Score:5, Informative)
They've been there, done that:
http://www.punageothermalventure.com/
A 30 MW plant producing heat and energy from the world's most active volcano. An 8 MW addition was just approved, and the utility (HELCO) is looking to expand even further:
http://www.hawaii247.com/2012/01/06/helco-announces-plans-to-expand-geothermal-energy-on-the-big-island/
If there is an area that has a shot at 100% of their electricity from non-petroleum sources, it's the Big Island, with abundant wind, solar and geothermal options.
Not without storage (Score:3)
Unlike the continental US, Hawai'i doesn't benefit from a geographically diverse grid. When it's cloudy, it's cloudy over all of Hawai'i. When it's not windy, it's not windy anywhere. An oversimplification to be sure, but fundamentally the continental US has much more diverse weather at any given time [plus many more total hours of sunlight], which means that it's not subject to the wild swings of non-dispatchable weather-impacted renewables that Hawai'i is.
Hawai'i can and should get lots of it's energy
Re: (Score:3)
Renewable energy is a myth. (Score:2, Funny)
In the long run the universe will achieve heat death.
Re:Renewable energy is a myth. (Score:5, Funny)
From what we have observed of the universe, yes, that does appear to be the long term diagnosis.
In the short-term, though, I'm more worried about the Sun undergoing its projected expansion phase (in a few billion years), or human beings accidentally finding a way to stop the Earth's dynamo (that one actually keeps me up at night).
Re: (Score:2)
Can I be the first to say: I don't care.
Re: (Score:2)
In the long run the universe will achieve heat death.
The only guarantee is that in the long run we are all going to be dead. In the short run (say, millions of years) the earth has such a collosal amount of heat that humanity is not going to run it out.
Besides the Earth's heat is going leak out by erupting volcanoes anyhow. A big one going off is like a million megatons of TNT going off. If we can extract that heat energy slowly we could power the entire world for it for hundreds of years... from the energy that is released in a single eruption.
I think you un
Pouring water into volcanos... (Score:5, Funny)
Long Term Effects of Cooling an Active Volcano (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Well unless the laws of thermodynamics changed overnight, I'm not too overly concerned. Then again...did the laws of thermodynamics change overnight? Did someone create a perpetual motion machine? Did entropy really go away...
Re: (Score:3)
Did entropy really go away...
Nope. Its alive and well here on Slashdot.
Re: (Score:2)
Long term effects? I'd be more worried about shooting high pressure water down there and getting a faceful of hot lava coming right back up.
Not again? (Score:4, Interesting)
The results of that review have not yet been announced, but the type of geothermal energy explored in Basel and at the Geysers requires fracturing the bedrock then circulating water through the cracks to produce steam. By its nature, fracturing creates earthquakes [nytimes.com], though most of them are small.
I live near The Geysers, where "treated" sewage water is pumped into the ground in order to keep geothermal production up at the powerplant, which is perpetually over budget and under production, and which has produced a superfund site where they formerly buried the spray-off from the turbine wheels in drums. The turbines are produced by Halliburton — I've seen the red Halliburton truck dragging one up Bottle Rock Rd. on a massive flatbed. Failure all around... the one bright spot is that there is a process for making claims for damage due to the euphemistically-named "microseismicity" [andersonsprings.org] as it is generally accepted that the pumping causes quakes.
Re:Not again? (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry but no. Most of the Geysers turbines were manufactured by Toshiba Corp (sorry, PDF) [google.com], with the exception of 2 turbines which were manufactured by GE (these may be retired now). New or replacement turbines are definitely competitively bid, since my company bids on them. Halliburton doesn't make steam turbines. If indeed you have seen Halliburton at the geysers, they must have been a transportation contractor or something like that.
As for the "superfund site", I can't find anything on this that is less than 15 years old. And this report [epa.gov] from 1983 says there is nothing hazardous at the Geysers. I'll agree it is a very old report and standards have changed since then, but the only other EPA document available is in 1995- they seem to have capped some wells that had the potential of a hydrogen sulfide explosion. Hardly the "drums full of toxic chemicals" that you are implying.
Re: (Score:3)
So, you get concentrated arsenic, rare earths, thorium, uranium, lithium, etc. as a side product from this? Sounds like an OPPORTUNITY to sell CHEAP CHEMICALS, not a nightmare.
False. If it were economically viable to separate them and sell them they would have done so already. Further, now that they've made them into a concrete layer cake, it would be nearly impossible to do so safely, because now it's got to be removed from the cake with a jackhammer.
Look, you have sat here and screamed bloody murder about the geyers. Are you aware that it is the cheapest form of mining that we have?
It is not a form of mining, try again.
Are you also aware that it and hydro are the 2 cheapest energy.
No, no it's not. The power plant at the Geysers has always, without exception, been over budget and under production. And the environmental impact of hydro is massive. I refuse to separate envir
Re: (Score:3)
I also live in the general area (in Sebastopol) and I have watched with disgust the politics around this boondogle. This is waste water that Santa Rosa had to get rid of someplace other than the Russian River because of a federal court ruling,even though it is tertiary treated water (better than 90%+ of the crap dumped into the Mississippi). The Alexander Valley grape growers first sued to keep the pipeline from going through their valley, but then after they found out they were going to get a cut in their
Volcano God want ... (Score:5, Funny)
Volcano God plenty angry now. Flatten peasants' puny city.
Re:Volcano God want ... (Score:5, Funny)
You are recruiting in the right place.
If the volcano gods want attractive virgins I think you are out of luck.
Water Vapor: The new enviro-enemy (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think the only nice power-related invention humans made (that seems to be harmless) is solar power.
Yes! Let's cover miles and miles of land with solar panels, that's totally not messing with nature!
i think that is true (Score:2)
Something totally unforseen is going to happen
we are so carelessly messing with this planet in so many ways that, it is just a matter of time until something goes really haywire. and, for such stuff, once is enough.
do we know whether volcanoes are connected to any other volcano through any kind of crustal dynamics ? no. have we mapped the entirety of crustal dynamics below ANY volcano up till this date ? no. we cant even drill that deep near a volcano.
we dont know a lot of shit. current situation resembles an early 19th century scientist research
Re: (Score:2)
we are so carelessly messing with this planet in so many ways that, it is just a matter of time until something goes really haywire. and, for such stuff, once is enough.
So would you say that it'd be a good idea to keep people who can't understand the consequences of their actions from breeding? Be sure then to turn your reproductive organs at the Bureau of Carefully Messing with Nature.
do we know whether volcanoes are connected to any other volcano through any kind of crustal dynamics ? no. have we mapped the entirety of crustal dynamics below ANY volcano up till this date ? no. we cant even drill that deep near a volcano.
Yes, and we also know it doesn't matter. You exhibit remarkable ignorance here. The first thing to consider is what is happening to the system. It's being massive cranked around by the cooling of Earth. Entire continents are shoved around. That mixing prevents massive build ups of energy ove
Re: (Score:2)
Re:stop messing with nature! (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, though, any method of producing energy will necessarily have a negative impact on something. Here in Norway, we have a lot of "clean" hydropower, but that has always faced opposition from environmentalists worrying about salmon and other fish, and from the native Sami people in the north. If you want to reduce global CO2 emissions, you are inevitably going to damage something else in some way. It is always a tradeoff, trying to find the least total negative impact.
Re: (Score:3)
Humans are cancer of the Earth!
Humans are the most interesting thing to have ever happened to Earth. So there's some ecological damage? That's a small price for what's going on.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not sure it's valid for the subject of the interest to make that judgement.
Then what is left to make that judgment? The natural world is no help. It's all breed till you fill your niche and start starving. This morality only exists because we exist.
Re: (Score:3)