[chrisco255]

There have to be some additional tradeoffs with distance? What city would you hope to power with energy from Yellowstone? Seattle? Denver? What would be the realistic costs of getting energy to those places? How much infrastructure build out would be needed? Would the tradeoffs be clearly worth it?

[dredmorbius]

Much of the central US lies within easy reach.

Keep in mind that the same general region is a major coal-producing zone presently, and much of that coal is burned locally for generation: it's cheaper to move the electricity than the coal used to generate it.

This also means that a substantial amount of the transmission infrastructure is already in place.