[ceejayoz]

> At this rate, the energy of the next eruption would be drained after about 16,000 years, and in less than 50,000 years the magma chamber would be cooled completely.

Iceland's event is much smaller, but we're not talking about the sort of thing that you can implement in a year.

[michaelbrave]

half jokingly I thought "so we just need 160 power plants to bring it down to 100 years"

[jconnop]

In the article it's said the proposal already included 160 plants in a big ring around yellowstone, resulting in the 16,000 years figure.

So to get it down to 100 years you'd need 160^2 = 25,600 geothermal plants.

Perfectly reasonable, let's do it.

[pacificmint]

Plus you’d take a great step towards solving our energy problems.

[Maxion]

We'll except the fact that deep geothermal plants are completely theoretic as a means of production - the final cost of power is a big ???.

Most people want cheap power. Anything over around 20 cents a kWh makes it uncompetitive to fossile equivalents (e.g. wood / oil / gas heating).

[ben_w]

Not only does it already exist, it's cheap enough that Kenya has some and wants more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_Kenya

Judging by the price tag of 9.1 Ksh/kWh listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Kenya (and looking up historical exchange rates because of the date of the link and their persistent inflation), that's about 0.085-0.090 USD/kWh.

[AdamN]

iirc it works well in Kenya because the thermal gradient is really steep and the heat is right near the surface. I don't think that's common around the world. Local expenses (labor, etc...) are also cheaper than in many parts of the world.

Geothermal is however one of the electricity sources with the fewest negative externalities so definitely should be pursued where possible.

[danans]

> We'll except the fact that deep geothermal plants are completely theoretic as a means of production

Not theoretical at all:

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/geothermal/americas-fir...

[soco]

In theory the cost of the whole thing blowing up should offset this investment costs but Don't Look Up (2021) convincing the folk about potential natural disasters.

[jackcviers3]

This is more like insurance. If you move to the mountains, you have to pay for special fire insurance because mountains have forest fires.

The U.S. is an extremely productive economy with at least one enormous cyclical natural catastrophe attached to it. If this natural catastrophe is preventable, and the costs of prevention are outweighed by the costs of losing the US economy, then it's probably worth doing.

I just assumed that it was one of those things that isn't economically or technically feasible.

[Denote6737]

"Anything over around 20 cents a kWh makes it uncompetitive"

Cries in European

[Kuinox]

Don't mistake price of production and selling price. When it takes times to construct additional production, you can sell the electricity at very high cost but have a low production cost.

[thorncorona]

California is 50c/kwh…

[vlovich123]

According to https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/archive/2021/ the average retail price for California was 20..

[pram]

The Factorio method of problem solving, I like it.

[chii]

hehe, or drilling down into the magma chamber 160 times causes it to erupt prematurely.

[anticensor]

If plate tectonics stops, ocean life is over, then the following year, land life will also be also be over.