219
all 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] joelimgu@lemmy.world 48 points 10 months ago

Sounds like an idea in a film that doesnt end very well

[-] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 25 points 10 months ago

It's 2023. Every possible scientific venture has been the subject of a science fiction/horror movie.

The recycled steel in a kid's braces was exposed to radiation, now she's "The Thing With X-Ray Teeth!!"

[-] brenstar@midwest.social 17 points 10 months ago

We’re in 2024 now my guy

[-] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 9 points 10 months ago

We are. He's still working on it, and that's okay.

[-] Mac@mander.xyz 1 points 10 months ago

Don't pick on the late bloomer.

[-] derpgon@programming.dev 12 points 10 months ago

Just don't drop the lightsaber perfectly vertical

[-] CanadaPlus@futurology.today 2 points 10 months ago

Hmm, I wonder how much heat a lightsaber handle could take before it stops working.

[-] hakunawazo@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

Dangerous. Just one little block too much removed, then:

[-] CanadaPlus@futurology.today 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Apparently magma chambers have accidentally been drilled into before.

Edit: That's actually in this article, too.

[-] CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Crack in the World

One of my favorites, as a kid. The title in the poster makes me laugh, reading that today.

[-] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 1 points 10 months ago

I'm pretty sure I've seen a movie with exactly this premise before, lol.

[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

You may find that getting your cautionary tales from a bunch of old, established powers might be flawed if you think about for a bit.

[-] bajabound@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Crack in the world (1965)

[-] waterSticksToMyBalls@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Disaster zone: volcano in New York. An absolute gem.

[-] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 39 points 10 months ago

Iceland gets the vast majority of its power from geothermal, but this is the first time they're drilling into an active volcano.

It'll be an interesting experiment, and hopefully will help bring even more clean energy possibilities to the world.

[-] Windex007@lemmy.world 29 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Well... First time on purpose

From the article:

But we know for sure it can be done because in 2009 a nearby Icelandic geothermal plant accidentally drilled into Krafla's magma chamber. The incident revealed important insights about the liquid state and dynamic interactions of the magma, although the drill's steel casings were obliterated in the process. On the bright side, this incursion also showed that exposing the magma chamber doesn't cause volcanoes to erupt.

[-] CraigeryTheKid@lemm.ee 18 points 10 months ago

Best "on the bright side" I have ever read.

[-] prof@infosec.pub 4 points 10 months ago

I love how it's first "Oh, we had some great findings." and only second "And no one died.".

[-] muix@infosec.pub 2 points 10 months ago

We get the vast majority from hydroelectric energy, since we have huge glacial rivers.

[-] PersonalDevKit@aussie.zone 1 points 10 months ago
[-] BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee 37 points 10 months ago

Do you want balrogs? Cause that's how you get balrogs

[-] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago

They delved too deep and greedily...

[-] DavidGarcia@feddit.nl 13 points 10 months ago

There's surprisingly little geothermal power being actively produced by the Earth via radioactive decay relative to the world energy consumption. There's loads of stored energy, but not a lot of new "production", nor transmission.

[-] CanadaPlus@futurology.today 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

40-some terawatts, apparently. We use maybe 20, converting from Wikipedia's 600EJ/year.

Based on that, it's a viable source of energy, but not with much room to grow. The sun provides 3 orders of magnitude more to our planet.

[-] DavidGarcia@feddit.nl 7 points 10 months ago

At the normal average 4% energy production growth rate we have another 28 years until we use up all new geothermal energy produced in the Earth, assuming we would only build geothermal from today.

But at the current total world geothermal energy production of ~0.1TW, it'll take 150 years to reach the 40TW at 4% growth rate.

It'll still take like 750 years until we suck all the stored geothermal energy (which is like 5.5555 quadrillion TWh) dry every year at 4% growth rate, but still, it seems like another "climate-change-like" moment to literally suck up all heat the heat being conducted to the surface of the planet from the interior.

Especially since we would differentially cool the crust, seems like a recipe for earthquakes and general troubles if we take it too far in the next hundred years or so.

We should generally aim to keep the net energy balance of the Earth the same as it was before we were here. If there is growth it has to happen in space or any heat production has to at least be beamed into space via the infrared atmospheric window (where it mostly passes through our atmosphere without being radiated back via the greenhouse effect).

So we should probably use geothermal energy very wisely.

[-] CanadaPlus@futurology.today 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

4% per annum bites really fast, I don't know if people realise that it has the same math as compound interest, it just seems slow if you're looking at units smaller than decades. If we double our use every 30 years like you said, we're also going to start having a sunlight shortage in 300 years. We could start using fusion then, but we shouldn't, because the waste heat would start to cook us, and would be enough to boil off the ocean in roughly another hundred years of growth.

What actually has to happen, is that we pick all the low hanging fruit as far as infrastructure goes, and growth just slows. From a market perspective that probably means returns will get smaller and smaller, making things that were once too expensive to be practical the new best option for investors.

but still, it seems like another “climate-change-like” moment to literally suck up all heat the heat being conducted to the surface of the planet from the interior.

No joke! And, if we wanted, we could go even deeper once the upper layers are cool, since drilling would become easier. I'd guess we'd see less earthquakes, because enough heat removed would shut down plate tectonics entirely, turning Earth geologically into Mars. Deep sea vents might turn off. Probably other bad stuff would happen, but I don't know what exactly.

So we should probably use geothermal energy very wisely.

[-] Neato@ttrpg.network 12 points 10 months ago

Nothing could go wrong creating a volcano lair. /s

[-] TheGreenGolem@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 10 months ago

I wouldn't be in their place when the Horned Reaper crawls out.

[-] Skua@kbin.social 5 points 10 months ago

This is Iceland, it's Surtr we need to worry abour

[-] theOneTrueSpoon@feddit.uk 10 points 10 months ago

I can't seem to post an image, but here's a meme I made: https://imgflip.com/i/8br6bg

[-] PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago

Thank you, I love it.

[-] bob_lemon@feddit.de 2 points 10 months ago

There you go

[-] Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Post a link with an ! before it. Example: ![alt text](link)

You can also post videos this way, by hosting on other websites such as mastodon.

[-] M137@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

I really like that image, very satisfying for some reason.

[-] the_one@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

(it's the symmetry)

[-] CJOtheReal@ani.social 5 points 10 months ago

Based, icland could get the biggest exporter of green Hydrogen doing that

[-] rtxn@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I've seen this episode of Stargate, the entire planet became uninhabitable for centuries.

[-] Deceptichum@kbin.social 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

At least it’s not the Nazi planet episode.

[-] CanadaPlus@futurology.today 1 points 10 months ago

Which one? Lol.

[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago

Didn't just recently a volcano tunnel into Iceland? How safe is this?

[-] ursakhiin@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago

Iceland has 32 active volcanoes. Eruptions are fairly routine, there.

I'm not saying this is safe or not. I'm just saying if any country in the world can tame a volcano, it Iceland.

[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago

32 volcanoes, but how many of them are over a mile long? That's rad af.

Anyway, I wonder if drilling into the magma chamber won't create a "path of least resistance" for when the volcano finally decides to erupt... doesn't sound like a good idea to stay at the other end of such path.

Then, with earthquakes and what not, how stable can they keep that bore hole?

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 points 10 months ago

Now we just need to relocate the population.

[-] _Gandalf_the_Black_@feddit.de 1 points 10 months ago

The power of the ~~sun~~ earth, in the palm of my hands

this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024
219 points (98.2% liked)

Futurology

1756 readers
253 users here now

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS