this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024
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Futurology

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[–] joelimgu 57 points 1 year ago (9 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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!!"

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

We’re in 2024 now my guy

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Don't pick on the late bloomer.

[–] Twinklebreeze 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Squeak 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s not in Thailand, it’s 2567!

[–] SinningStromgald 1 points 1 year ago

How's the future spaceman?

[–] hakunawazo 11 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just don't drop the lightsaber perfectly vertical

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Apparently magma chambers have accidentally been drilled into before.

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

[–] CosmicCleric 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Crack in the World

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Duamerthrax 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] waterSticksToMyBalls 1 points 1 year ago

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

[–] bajabound 1 points 1 year ago

Crack in the world (1965)

[–] mipadaitu 40 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] Crashumbc 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They delved too deep and greedily...

[–] hakunawazo 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

This foe is beyond any of you. Run!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Gorillaz - Fire coming out of a monkeys head https://youtu.be/LtQHIv2O8x0?si=U0xgfZdriTWAM6UF

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nothing could go wrong creating a volcano lair. /s

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Thank you, I love it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

There you go

[–] M137 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] the_one 1 points 1 year ago

(it's the symmetry)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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.

[–] rtxn 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

At least it’s not the Nazi planet episode.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Which one? Lol.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Now we just need to relocate the population.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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