[0] <a href="https://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/documents/DefendingCivilizationFromSupervolcanos20151015.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov/sites/default/file...</a><p>You wouldn't want to drill into the magma chamber to relieve pressure, instead you would drill next to the magma chamber to cool the rocks on the edge, shrinking the chamber. Every few decades after the chamber had shrunk, you'd drill a new set of boreholes closer. The expense would be substantial, but well within the range of major government projects, and if you use the heat for power generation you can recover some of that cost - indeed if you subsidize the initial logistical setup, the long term operation can likely be fiscally self sustaining.
My favorite National Park Service quip of all time. At the bottom of the page on Yellowstone's volcano [0] are a few questions and answers, and among them this gem:<p>>> <i>What is Yellowstone National Park doing to stop or prevent an erruption?</i><p>> <i>Nothing can be done to prevent an eruption. The temperatures, pressures, physical characteristics of partially molten rock, and immensity of the magma chamber are beyond human ability to impact—much less control.</i><p>In my head, some staff geologist, tired of answering dumb questions, was asked and finally snapped a little.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/volcano.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/volcano.htm</a>
Re: the first paragraph's reference to nuking the Deepwater horizon's oil leak, Soviet engineers demonstrated that this was a viable technique back in the 60's. Plenty of wild non-war applications have been proposed for nuclear bombs over the years, but this is the only one I can think of that is actually somewhat of a good idea. Any fallout is minor and contained under 1km+ of bedrock, and the harm prevented is worth the cost. I am surprised that the author dismisses it so rapidly.<p><a href="https://interestingengineering.com/soviet-engineers-detonated-a-nuke-miles-underground-to-put-out-a-gas-well-fire" rel="nofollow">https://interestingengineering.com/soviet-engineers-detonate...</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S57Xq03njsc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S57Xq03njsc</a>
I think the answer is good, but misses one important point - it is not like there is a thin barrier where there's a sharp pressure gradient, such that you can "pop" the volcano, or allow it to fizz like a shaken coke can with a tiny hole.<p>When you drill down into the volcano, the hole just collapses on itself and plugs itself back up. The closer you get to the caldera, the rock become viscous and hot. Not only does your drill bit melt, but it's like trying to a hole into warming ice-cream - you don't accomplish anything.<p>Geothermal energy plants function by drilling holes <i>near</i> magma chambers, and allowing some heat to radiate into the bore hole, and then up the shaft. ...and while this process extracts some heat, the energy withdrawn is orders of magnitude smaller than what is present.
With volcanos, the more viscous the magma, the more energy gets stored before an eruption. Supervolcanos are the most viscous type, hence the massive explosion.<p>Think boiling water vs thick oatmeal vs boiling a pressure cooker until it explodes, but obviously worse.<p>So "relieve pressure" in this case isn't like a pressure release valve on a water heater.<p>You'd need to either cool the mass, remove the overburden, or create some sort of massive voids for expansion.<p>The US nuclear test done in Mississippi resulted in vaporizing the rock and soil and creating a large underground void, for whatever that's worth as a sort of proof of concept.
I've often wondered if its possible to use a fault line as a waste compactor and recycling centre considering all our "man made" waste comes from this planet?
"PSA: Before drilling into a supervolcano magma chamber, please arrange to accept and dispose of at least 1000 cubic miles of superheated lava to be emitted at a flow rate of up to 1 cubic mile per hour. Thank you for your attention to this detail."
Also if you apply hydraulic equations to the lave through such a small diameter borehole, you quickly find that you would NOT be in control of anything and you'd probably do more to trigger a large eruption - the velocity of lava out of such a borehole would be hypersonic at least and quickly open the borehole to form a new vent equal to an actual eruption.
One thing not considered in TFA is the idea of drilling a hole and then using nuclear explosions to pulverize the surrounding rock to effectively increase the size of the hole. This might also punch through the last (how many?) meters of rock that are too hot to drill through. I still doubt it would work, and if it did that might be really bad too.
Poke it with a giant straw like a juice box and suck the lava out. Straw should be made from non-stick ultra-high-temperature ceramic. You just need to find someone large enough to use the straw.
It seems like there's a mistaken assumption here. Suppose you had a cheat code for the drill problem (starship Enterprise is in orbit, it fires its phasers and ablates a huge hole down to several kilometers). The only way to relieve the overpressure is for a sufficiently large volume of hot, liquid rock to rush up through that hole to the surface - that is to say, an eruption. Which is precisely what you were trying to avoid.
<i>"People who think a nuclear device is comparable to the energy released by a volcano just haven't seen a restless volcano up close. They are a whole lot bigger than they seem to be in the films. Mount St Helens is a relatively small volcano, yet it still took me nearly 6 hours to walk out of the center crater."</i><p>I can well attest to that. A year or so after the major eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, I had business in both Portland and Seattle and on that occasion I drove from Portland to Seattle rather than fly, as I'd normally do. (I'd been to Tektronix to whinge about ongoing problems we'd been having with a PAL 625 TV sync pulse generator—an interesting story in itself but I'll leave that for another time).<p>I live an ocean away—thousands of miles from Portland but I had an ulterior motive for renting a vehicle in Portland and driving to Seattle, as this time I wanted to visit and drive over the 'renewed' Tacoma Narrows bridge which replaced the infamous <i>Galloping Gertie</i> that failed in 1940—of which I'd learned so much about years earlier in structures and physics. Having a vehicle made that possible. Visiting Mt St Helens wasn't on my agenda—and I'd already seen it post the 1980 eruption from a commercial SFO/SEA flight although I did expect to see it in the distance to the east from the I5.<p>It was somewhat latish afternoon, 3:30–4:00 pm, when I arrived at my nearest point on the I5 to Mt St Helens and unexpectedly nearby there was a small airfield. Signs on the highway indicated that a company was offering joy flights to Mt St Helens, so on-the-spur-of-the-moment I decided to take the flight. Unfortunately, I was the only one wanting a flight at that time and the pilot told me that it was uneconomic to take only one person (two being the minimum) so I'd have to wait until additional sightseers turned up—and if that didn't happen soon (within 15 or so minutes) then it'd be too late in the day to fly! Anyway, I struck a deal at somewhat less than the amount for two people and we were on our way.<p>I don't need to describe this remarkable scene except to say it was spectacular—much more so than the somewhat limited view from the commercial jet; and anyone who's interested will already be familiar with the wonderful photos in <i>National Geographic</i> and elsewhere. However, one point I must comment on is that for mile after mile in this desolate lunar-mud-like landscape the remaining trunks of the flattened pine trees were all facing radially away from the exit point of the explosion like the spokes of a bicycle wheel, it was one of the strangest sights I've ever seen. There was no doubt that this was an extremely huge explosion.<p>After doing the standard joy flight, the pilot suggested that seeing I'd paid much more than the normal fare would I like him to take me closer to the crater. Gleefully, I agreed and we not only got closer to the crater <i>but we actually flew around inside it</i> — right, the crater is truly huge when one's actually inside it! When the author says it took him nearly <i>'six hours to walk out of the center of the crater'</i> he not exaggerating one iota.<p>'Tis a damn shame photos aren't allowed on HN, otherwise I'd post some of my old slides taken from inside the crater (they're truly spectacular).
TLDR: No.<p>But RTFA anyway, it's a good read, and a little unsettling how many problems people think could be solved with just a bit of nuclear bombing.
Would not that have massive CO2 footprint? It would be very expensive to pay for it. Vulcanic eruption is natural and does not count, but man-made emmisions require permit.