AND we would reduce the odds of a genuinely stupefyingly huge disaster! https://twitter.com/calebwatney/status/1326031454103609344

Seriously though y'all, putting in geothermal energy generation equipment around the edges of the Yellowstone caldera to bleed off some of that heat which will eventually explode and wipe out half the continent would be a good idea.

Not gonna lie, IMHO the Yellowstone caldera is a way bigger long-term risk than e.g. anthropogenic climate change.

Y'all the last time a volcano like that blew, the ***it snowed in Virginia in July***.

1816 became known as the "Year of Poverty" around the world because of how hellish it was. Lethal food shortages set in practically immediately. The sky turned red for *months* and the sun was so dimmed you could see sunspots *with the naked eye*.

Food prices rose ***nearly ten-fold***. There were hard frosts in *August*.

Tambora, the volcano that did this, ejected about 50 cubic kilometers of material.

The last time Yellowstone erupted, it ejected ***1,000**** cubic kilometers of material.

Now look. Bleeding some heat off that sucker might be complicated.

But it seems like not trying to figure out a way to do it is just monumentally stupid.

NASA developed a plan to do it in 2017, and there are continuing studies of the question. Whether these plans would work is contested. Ideally, we'd find a smaller volcano somewhere to do a practice run on for a decade or two.

These things happen on long time scales so we actually do probably have time to figure it out.

But WHEN we need an answer, we will need it RIGHT THEN. So we should be putting serious resources into getting an answer.

Geothermal energy generation is used extensively in many places, and the POTENTIAL for geothermal is enormous. And if we can also ward off a major extinction threat in our own backyard, I say two thumbs up to that!

I mean after 2020 I don't know how anyone can see any even semi-plausible black swan event and be like "Nah, that won't happen."

IT WILL HAPPEN AND PROBABLY NEXT WEEK https://twitter.com/ModeledBehavior/status/1326322399906828291

I should note that I watched Armageddon last night SO I MAY BE A BIT HYPED UP.

Also, I should note that I didn't offer the climate change comparison to say climate change doesn't matter.

It's just that having your lungs burned out and your eyes exploded by superheated supersonic ash clouds is *perhaps* worse.

But hey if we dump a ton of water into the caldera and we use the steam to power turbines, we may prevent a supervolcano eruption AND GET ZERO CARBON ENERGY!

Wooohoooo!

The government could build a massive geothermal plant and sell the energy and EARN MONEY and use that money to pay for these other priorities.

Bleeding of Yellowstone is as close to a free lunch as it gets. https://twitter.com/DWAnderson1/status/1326324276836884488

Note that this is basically Iceland's whole national strategy and, uh, it works!

It's also how the oil states get rich. They have energy resources. They use them.

We have an energy resource. Which if we do not use, may eventually wipe out all life on earth.

It's the opposite of e.g. oil. There's not a negative externality to the energy extraction. There's a POSITIVE externality to it!