YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, U.S.A — NASA plans to stop the Yellowstone caldera from erupting by pumping it full of water and siphoning geothermal energy from it.
According to the BBC, the space agency has developed a plan to drill underneath Yellowstone and pump it's magma chamber full of water, extracting the heat. Cooling the magma rock would occur at a rate of 1 meter per year, meaning it could take thousands of years to eliminate the risk of eruption.
The cost of NASA's plan is estimated to be US$3.5 billion, the BBC reports. The space agency expects the clean energy derived from heat extraction would offset this via lower power costs and the creation of geothermal plants in the area.