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In general, people tend to prepare for adversity. Emergency services, hospitals and the insurance industry exist to provide a measure of aid when things do not go well. Some floods, some fires, relatively small earthquakes and some unusual weather conditions are, in varying degrees, fairly manageable with these basic types of support. Sometimes however, a situation is so severe that ordinary remedies fail completely.

The complete or partial disruption of world trade would put much of humanity in jeopardy. A partial and serious disruption of trade would occur with a major change in sea level (e.g., a drop of 400 feet or so) or with a new and extensive ice age. A really severe or extensive disruption – virtually a complete disruption of world trade -- would result from the impact of a large meteor, a massive lava outflow on land or the severe radiation of the surface of the earth due to a reversal of the earth's magnetic poles.

Also, it is possible that there may be a reduction of oxygen in the atmospheric to a fraction of its current level (i.e., a transformation of the bulk methane held as clathrates at the bottom of the sea due to global warming would consume most of the oxygen in the atmosphere; this would be a rather quick and very serious event). For more information please see Wikipedia; clathrates. In any case, regardless of the cause, during a world wide crop failure for 10 or more consecutive years, most of humanity would perish.

It is proposed that roughly 300 economic enclaves be created, one each adjacent to an active volcano. Substantial amounts of electrical power, process steam and process heat would be derived from an active lava flow from a volcano to support and sustain an enclave. Geothermal power is based on generating power from heated water. Fast flowing lava however ranges in temperature between 1,100 to 1,250 degrees C (as a function of its composition) -- the useful heat derivable from such fast flowing lava is measured in thousands of Giga watts.

The basic transport means for the utilization of heat from flowing lava would be by using a closed loop transfer system with a special transfer fluid (comprised of 50% aluminum and 50% silicon). This fluid has a eutectic point at about 400 degrees C with the useful upper temperature range of about 1,250 degrees C. A nickel transfer interface between the flowing lava and the fluid would allow effective heat transfer rates. A long loop of 3 foot diameter ceramic pipe connected to the ends of the nickel interface could transport the liquid at 5 foot per second. With an 800 degree C temperature drop, a single transfer loop would provide about 18 Giga watts of power (many loops could be used if required). The power generation facilities which utilize the heat would be a mile or two away from the interface with the flowing lava. By comparison, the Grand Coolee Dam in the western United States can provide about 6.5 Giga watts.

Using specially designed drills and using this special fluid as a drilling fluid, it appears that certain types of volcanoes can be tapped to produce steady, reliable, fast flowing lava. There are perhaps 300 or so suitable volcanoes world wide. The tunnels are to be drilled slightly uphill (say about 15 degrees) using a pair drills to produce an oval tunnel 6 feet wide and 3 feet high (simulating a natural lava tube). The special drills and fluid are only needed to cut through the last few hundred feet — existing construction and drilling methods are suitable for drilling and configuring the cooler regions of a volcano.

A large chamber should be created within the volcano close to the surface of the volcano. A simple relief valve at the top of the chamber will then normalize the gas pressure in the lava (venting the excess gas through the top of the chamber) prior to the release of the lava on the sloped surface of the volcano. This approach should avoid violent eruptions due to variations in the gas content of the lava. The main tunnel would terminate at the base of the chamber and the exit tunnel (or tunnels) for the lava would be from the upper portion of the chamber. The tunnels (and the chamber) should be preheated (with air and propane) at break through (to a dike and/or sill complex above the magma chamber) to assist in establishing routine flow.

Further, since many or most of these volcanoes are underlain with a layer of limestone, large volumes of clean carbon dioxide be created and removed by injecting water into these layers adjacent to a hot magma chamber. The resulting carbon dioxide flow then can be used as a feed stock using supercritical carbon dioxide methods to produce a wide variety of carbon based products (e.g., tires, fuel, fertilizer, pharmaceuticals, plastics, etc.). Please see a journal article in this regard (Homogeneous Catalysis in Supercritical Fluids: Hydrogenation of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide to Formic Acid, Alkyl Formates, and Formamides by Philip G. Jessop, Yi Hsiao, Takao Ikariya, and Ryoji Noyori; contribution from ERATO Molecular Catalysis Project, 1247 Yachigusa, Yakusa-cho, Toyota 470-03, Japan; J. Am. Chem. Soc., 118 (2), 344 -355, 1996. 10.1021/ja953097b).

Since electrical power would be abundant and extremely cheap, the source of hydrogen for these (hydrogenation) reactions would be from the electrolysis of water (the separation of water into gaseous oxygen and hydrogen). Also, the excess oxygen can be used to maintain a fresh air supply independent of using the atmospheric as a source. [To obtain fresh breathable air from exhaled air, the following steps can be used; (1) first pass the exhaled air through a drying agent (a desiccant) to remove most of the water, (2) then route the dried exhaled gas mixture through a bed of sodium or potassium hydroxide pellets to remove the CO2, (3) add enough moisture back into the mixture to get a reasonable level of humidity, and (4) add sufficient O2 to restore the mixture to a normal level, 18% -- by ProfHoff 881, Argonne National Laboratories.].

Examining the use of 18 Giga watts, 1/3 of the power could be used to generate electricity, 1/3 could be used to generate process steam and 1/3 could be used as process hear. These are massive amounts of energy and would permit the production of many products at a greatly reduced cost. For this type of project, the temptation to proceed to develop an economic infrastructure in a routine, normal manner would be strong. However, as the potential profitability would be very high, these economic enclaves be economically created. They should be robustly configured to survive serious environmental events.

These enclaves should be as self sufficient as possible and should subsidize all necessary production facilities to permit a full measure of internal continuity should world trade be seriously disrupted. The creation of strategic stockpiles of key materials, particularly of metals, should be a routine activity. Everything from the refining of silicon and aluminum to the production of pharmaceuticals and fertilizer can be undertaken.

Although the actual locations of such sites would be dictated by finding suitable volcanoes, survival frequently would be predicated upon basic statistical luck with regard to the character and location of a serious event. Certain serious events would be those generally labeled as "mass extinction" events. The impact of the large meteor off of the coast of the Yucatan in Mexico (see Wikipedia) is believed to be one such event. The creation of the Siberian Traps (a truly massive outflow of lava on land; see Wikipedia) is believed to be another such event.

The local, new population at such a site could number from 250,000 to 2 million people and a new city would need to be created. Creation of a subway system with very large stations (which could be sealed off) would seem to be a prudent precaution. The building codes would have to be very conservative. Preferably the associated industrial sector would also be equally durable. Since each city is to be built from scratch (ideally in a remote, now inhospitable, region) it is proposed that 25 areas be radialy sited around a large round central park, with each area reserved for a given linguistic group (e.g., ownership of land for 100 years in a given area would require being fluent in a given language). Each linguistic area would be about one square mile in size. The establishment of these concentrated cultural groups, based on language, would provide great long term diversity for the city.

Yantarni is a small andesitic stratovolcano located between the Aniakchak caldera and the Chiginadak volcanoes that was not discovered until 1979. A large breached crater on the NE side, which was formed by collapse of the summit about 2000-3500 years ago, contains a lava dome that marks the volcano's 1345 m high point. This eruption, which resembled that of Mount St.Helens in 1980, began with a debris avalanche produced by the edifice collapse that was accompanied by a possible lateral blast and followed by the emplacement of 1 cu km of pyroclastic flows related to growth of the summit lava dome. No historical eruptions have been documented from Yantarni ( text and image courtesy of volcano.si.edu).

This long range undertaking needs to be carefully planned and well executed. It is a critical, strategic task. It is proposed that the first city be called Pele Uno and that it be located high in the deserts of northern Chile.

The Kilauea volcano in Hawaii produces millions of tons of carbon dioxide every day. Mt. Etna, an Italian volcano, produces 35,000 tons of carbon dioxide per day and is the largest single source of natural carbon dioxide in the world. Unlike many other volcanoes, Mt. Etna is not in an area where tectonic plates meet. Although carbon dioxide is a byproduct of many processes involving rock formation, it can be argued that hot, wet limestone layers are major production sites for carbon dioxide.

Volcanoes have long been thought to be the major contributor of carbon dioxide, but there are large areas with vents expelling non-volcanic carbon dioxide in Italy, California and other places. While volcanoes produce the gas from magma, the carbon dioxide vents in Italy are expelling gas generated at depth from metamorphism of rocks that were formed by marine organisms and are composed of calcium carbonate. Generally, the chemical reaction depends upon the percolation of water down to a hot layer of limestone.

Regarding changes in sea level see Wikipedia, which states, in part: "Marine regression is a geological process occurring when areas of submerged sea floor are exposed above the sea level. The opposite event, marine transgression, occurs when flooding from the sea covers previously exposed land. Evidence of marine regressions and transgressions occurs throughout the fossil record, and these fluctuations are thought to have caused (or contributed to) several mass extinctions, among them the Permian-Triassic extinction event (250 million years ago) and Cretaceous—Tertiary extinction event (65 Ma). At the time of the Permian or P/T extinction, the largest extinction event in the Earth's history, global sea level fell 250 meters, or more than 800 ft." [Courtillot, Vincent. Evolutionary Catastrophes: The Science of Mass Extinction. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999; p. 89.]