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by jefflombardjr 1733 days ago
Is there a way to access the heat potential irresponsibly?

Clarification: I mean of course if you create a volcano in the wrong spot that would be bad, but like if you're drilling for thermally heated ground water can stuff go wrong?

4 comments

Did you mean responsibly instead?

A sibling comment posted a link on this and I just submitted a similar article myself. The twist seems to be to extract the heat/energy from the side or from below the magma chamber to not destabilize the ceiling of the chamber. That's because rock becomes more brittle when cooling down. Triggering a supervolcano eruption instead of preventing it would be a very unfortunate outcome ;)

You answered my question, thank you! I meant irresponsibly. I assumed these are super safe considering a ton of farms have access wells to hot water in Iceland.
In the german town of Staufen im Breisgau the City Center has risen about 12cm since a drilling operation in 2007, which led to many cracks in buildings.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staufen_im_Breisgau

From the wiki:

The cause for this geological change has been identified as a drilling operation conducted in the summer and autumn of 2007 to provide geothermal heating to the city hall. The drilling perforated an anhydrite layer and caused high-pressure groundwater to come into contact with the anhydrite, which then began to expand.

By 2010, some sections of town had risen by 30 centimetres (12 in). In July 2013, no end to the rising process was in sight.

Quite the woopsie

But even though it is still rising today that does not seem to deter more geothermal heating plans:

https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/city-of-freiburg-germany-endo...

I'm guessing you mean responsibly, as we all know the answer otherwise.

I'm just an internet rando, but I think that if they could identify spots that were remote enough to not impact the park features, and to design it from the start to address all other concerns (like handling waste water etc), disrupting nature, it could be done.

A brief moment of optimism from someone pessimistic about the future.

Just exclude any current company in the energy sector.