Word: steams
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...along Montana's Yellowstone River are downstream from a simmering caldera, a geologic hot spot that has become especially active recently. Indeed, Yellowstone National Park contains the floor of a gigantic volcanic cauldron, one that rises and sinks with the forces that lie beneath - hence the picturesque geysers and steam holes. But a wave of recent earthquake activity is raising fears that have their origins 642,000 years ago, when a Yellowstone "supervolcano" exploded so violently that it created the caldera itself. Today, such an explosion - 1,000 times more powerful than the explosion of Mount St. Helens...
This activity could have a whole range of consequences. In a study released last year, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said possible hazards could include hydrothermal explosions, when steam breaks through the surface and forms a crater. That has happened 26 times in the park's 127 years of record-keeping. The USGS discounted chances for cataclysmic eruption of the caldera, noting that the hot, active magma chamber below Yellowstone has turned into "largely crystallized mush." But the same study also said: "Depending on the nature and magnitude of a particular hazardous event and the particular time and season...
...Icelandic engineers successfully diverted underground water to heat an elementary school, and the rest of the capital slowly followed suit. When the global oil crisis hit in the 1970s, efforts to turn this local resource into electricity - by drilling holes into underground heat pockets and reservoirs to release pressurized steam that then runs turbines - moved into high gear. Today, if it's not raining or snowing (or both), views from Reykjavik's harbor are relatively clear. Icelanders hope steam can pull them through tough times again. "The Icelandic power industry will be one of the pillars to carry...
...ensure that geothermal energy powers Iceland's future, the country is boosting the number of university programs dedicated to the subject. It's essential to make Icelanders as enthusiastic about steam as they have been about the finance industry over the past few years. On a blustery Sunday afternoon in May, a circle of visitors in all-weather jackets waits in front of the Strokkur geyser, a popular tourist attraction in southwest Iceland. Among the crowd is a busload of Harvard M.B.A. students fresh from their exams. Georg Ludviksson, an Icelandic grad who helped organize the tour, said he wasn...
...those extra billions need to drink, they will also need to eat--and agriculture sucks up two-thirds of the world's water. They will need electricity too, and in the U.S., nearly half the water withdrawn on a daily basis is used for energy production--to turn the steam turbines in coal plants, for instance...