
Volcano Skyscraper Harnesses Clean Energy from Active Volcanoes - ph0rque
http://www.evolo.us/featured/volcano-skyscraper-harnesses-clean-energy-from-active-volcanoes/
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dalke
This proposal isn't remotely believable. Quoting from
[http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120813/srep00572/fig_tab/sre...](http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120813/srep00572/fig_tab/srep00572_T1.html)
some 4.8E11 kg of tephra and lava came from the eruption.

That's 480,000,000 tons, or 1/8th of the world's production of concrete.

So, let's build a cover which can hold down an eruption. That will need to be
stronger than rock, and able to withstand the force that can eject 250 million
cubic meters of tephra up to 9km above the ground. How much material do you
think is needed?

Think of it this way - the entire mass of the volcano isn't enough to keep the
eruption from happening. The ice cap on Eyjafjallajökull wasn't able to cool
it down enough. Human-produced dry ice certainly wouldn't be anywhere near
enough. And if it were enough, the sublimated CO2 pouring off the side of a
volcano near Mexico City would suffocate many more people than Lake Nyos ever
did.

Even if it could be covered and cooled down, there's a lot of energy
underneath the surface. If it's blocked, it will easily find a new route.

Which means that this is, as is obvious from the first glace, a bunch of
architects who had a chance to ignore reality to make something which sounds
cool.

