NASA scientists concocted an idea a decade ago to save the world from the potential of a humanity-ending eruption of the supervolcano underneath Yellowstone National Park.
Their plan sought to prevent an eruption of one of the world’s largest supervolcanoes by siphoning off its heat and cooling it down with water.
It was an ambitious — and expensive — proposition. It would also be logistically impossible and, according to volcanologists, would do utterly nothing to reduce Yellowstone’s explosive potential.
The 2015 theory never would’ve worked, and NASA never tried to make it work. So why are people still talking about it?
“This was a back-of-the-envelope calculation done by some scientists looking at ways Earth might be threatened by catastrophe in the future,” said Mike Poland, scientist in charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. “But it was never a plan. It was never taken seriously.”
The Idea
“The plan” was more akin to a “thought experiment” than an earnest proposition to save the world from Yellowstone, Poland said. It was something considered by the agency’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.
“The planetary defense group looked into things that might pose a threat to the planet, like asteroid impacts and so forth,” he said. “Large volcanic eruptions are one of those things that could potentially impact the planet, so it was one of the things they considered as a threat. So, they did a separate study on how this threat might be mitigated.”
Four scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology wrote the 26-page study “Defending Human Civilization from Supervolcanic Eruptions” The study summarized that while supervolcanic eruptions can devastate humanity, they can be avoided with large-scale engineering.
“Supervolcanic eruptions occur more frequently than large asteroid or comet impacts that would have a similarly catastrophic effect to human civilization,” the study reads. “We assess whether future supervolcanic eruptions could be dampened, delayed, or prevented by engineering solutions.”
The study was submitted to NASA in 2015, and that was that. Poland said it would never have been published if Brian Wilcox, the study's lead author, had not mentioned it during a BBC interview in 2017.
“It was never really released,” he said. “Then (Wilcox) released it in response to some Yellowstone news. He just sent it to the BBC, so NASA ended up publishing it on their website, and it took on a life of its own.”
Drill, Baby, Drill
The study classifies Yellowstone as “the greatest supervolcano threat to the U.S. (and perhaps also to all of human civilization).”
Eruptions on the same scale as Yellowstone’s last eruption could eject 10 quadrillion kilograms of ash and sulfate aerosols “sufficient to blanket sizeable fractions of continents and create a regional or global ‘volcanic winter,’’ causing agricultural failures and widespread famine.
To prevent a future eruption, the scientists concluded that Yellowstone would need to be and could be cooled off.
If implemented, NASA would drill more than 160 6-mile-deep holes into the rock above Yellowstone’s magma chamber. Then, water would be injected into the holes at high pressures to gradually cool the volcano's ambient temperature to around 662 degrees.
At that comparatively lower temperature, the likelihood of an eruption would be significantly reduced, and a humanity-ending crisis averted.
The process would be slow and expensive. The study estimated a baseline cost of $3.46 billion, which would be somewhat offset by the massive amounts of geothermal power generated during the process.
“Even for a massive supervolcano such as Yellowstone, it would take less than 50,000 years for such a cooling system to completely drain the heat away from the magma chamber, all the while generating electricity at competitive prices,” the study reads.
While the study identifies several supervolcanoes that could threaten the United States, the world and humanity, it primarily focuses on Yellowstone. The scientists acknowledged that the task seemed “daunting and perhaps impossible” but concluded it could be done.
“Given the potentially huge cost of supervolcanic eruptions on regional or even global scales, we consider these to be potentially valuable to stimulate future research,” the study reads. “It seems quite plausible that the entire enterprise could be self-supporting following initial investment by sale of the resulting electricity into the national power grid.”
Flawed Plan
Since the 2015 study was just an internal document created for NASA’s eyes only, it wasn’t peer-reviewed by volcanologists. If it had been, the Planetary Defense Coordination Office would have learned their plan would be a colossal waste of time and resources.
“It's got a lot of problems with it,” Poland said. “It doesn't quite consider the volcano aspects very well. The plan to drill and cool the volcano wouldn't work. That’s not how Yellowstone or any volcano works.”
Volcanoes are essentially giant holes tapped into the Earth’s mantle, either along the boundaries or melted through the interior of tectonic plates. The heat of the Earth’s interior keeps the magma in the mantle permanently melted, only turning to rock when it erupts as lava on the surface.
Yellowstone isn’t an isolated pocket of heat in the Earth’s crust. Because it’s tapped into a perpetual heat source, it couldn’t be cooled off by any amount of water injected from the surface.
“The idea that you could somehow draw the heat away from Yellowstone would be like having a pot of boiling water on the stove while the stove is on and trying to cool it by taking an eyedropper and dripping ice water into the pot one drop at a time,” Poland said. “It's not going to work. The burner is still on, the source of heat is still there, and the water is still going to boil.”
Poland also found the $3.46 billion price tag “kind of laughable.”
“All those estimates are always off by about a factor of 100,” he said. “And yes, you could make power from it, but the power would not offset the cost of the efforts to do it.”
The endeavor would also require an immense amount of water – much more than currently exists in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Poland said water would have to be shipped to northwest Wyoming to become a viable source of geothermal energy.
“You'd have to drain many aquifers in the central US and send the water up to Yellowstone,” he said. “I don't think the farmers in the central part of the US would care much for that. There’s a laundry list of things that don't work about this plan, and it's unnecessary.”
Old Faithful Geyser spouts off at Yellowstone National Park, which sits atop a supervolcano. (Getty Images) 
Old Faithful Geyser spouts off at Yellowstone National Park, which sits atop a supervolcano. (Getty Images) 
Old Faithful Geyser spouts off at Yellowstone National Park, which sits atop a supervolcano. (Getty Images)
Supervolcano A Minor Threat
Yellowstone’s last eruption was over 70,000 years ago, and its last major eruption—one on a humanity-ending scale—was over 600,000 years ago. Despite the abundant geothermal activity in the Yellowstone caldera, Poland is adamant that the supervolcano is a minor threat to humanity (if even that).
“Yellowstone is not going to erupt anywhere near that time frame,” he said. “There are many, many greater threats to the United States that will happen on our timescales. How many Category 5 hurricanes will hit the Gulf states in our lifetimes?”
Even events like the hydrothermal explosion of Black Diamond Pool this summer aren’t signs of an imminent volanic eruption. Poland and other scientists discovered all the rock dislodged from the blast came from within a few hundred feet of the surface, not even close to the magma chamber churning miles below.
Poland added that Yellowstone isn’t even the most threatening volcano in the western US. A future eruption of Mount Rainer is more likely and devastating than the Yellowstone caldera.
“The hazard of a Mount Rainier eruption is that it might melt a lot of that snow and ice that's sitting on the volcano,” he said, “and that could lead to catastrophic flooding down the drain ditches that radiate away from the mountain. That has happened in the geologically recent past, and these mudflows have the potential to be large enough to impact populated areas."
Losing Yellowstone To Stop Yellowstone
In addition to his scientific critiques, Poland has personal objections to NASA’s study. If the plan were implemented, it would sacrifice Yellowstone to stop Yellowstone.
“There have been many other cases around the world where geothermal power has been produced near geyser fields, and those geyser fields have altered their behavior,” he said. “Some of the geysers have turned off. That sort of development would wreck these magical systems.”
Drilling 160 6-mile-deep holes into Yellowstone would inevitably alter the park’s geysers, mudpots and hot springs. The water feeding the plumbing of Old Faithful would be siphoned into the holes, not to mention the water from its rivers, streams and other bodies of water in the park.
The Geothermal Steam Act of 1970 prohibits the development of geothermal power plants in several national parks, including Yellowstone. While an act by the U.S. Congress would probably not prevent a humanity-ending crisis, it does prevent the exploitation of Yellowstone’s energy potential.
Even then, Poland says, it would all be for naught. The effort to prevent a supervolcanic eruption would irreparably alter Yellowstone National Park while doing nothing to stop the Yellowstone supervolcano.
“There's no need to go to Yellowstone to do this,” he said.
The Poster Child
Even with the scientific and ethical objections to NASA’s study, there’s no need for anyone to explode over the possibility of large-scale drilling to stop a Yellowstone eruption. It was never meant to be “a call to action” or anything other than an exploration of solutions to a hypothetical threat.
“This was never a plan,” Poland said. “I know it's taken on a life of its own – ‘NASA has a plan for doing this.’ But this was basically just a thought exercise for a couple of scientists. It was never a plan.”
Even so, why Yellowstone? Given the low likelihood of a significant Yellowstone eruption and the potential threat posed by other volcanoes, why is Yellowstone always framed as the biggest volcanic threat to humanity?
“Yellowstone has become the poster child for this kind of volcanism, even if it's not a volcano that will likely erupt anytime soon,” Poland said. “Yellowstone is iconic. The first national park, bison, Old Faithful. It’s a place that millions of people go to, and everyone around the world knows. You could bring up some other caldera system in the world, but it wouldn't be nearly as attention-grabbing because it wouldn't be as familiar to people as Yellowstone. It has that legendary status.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
