Before you ask, no I'm not making this up and this isn't fake news. NASA really is planning to drill into the Yellowstone Super-volcano.

When I first say this headline on Drudge, I thought it was just another sensationalist website making some outrageous claim using the name of a scientist that doesn't even exist. I spent a good hour trying to debunk this, but it's true.

When I finally tracked this to the BBC (you would think you might be able to trust them for accuracy), I even decided to research the people mentioned in the story to make sure they existed. The guy they quote is Brian Wilcox who works with NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. Here's Brian's profile on the NASA website, so he's real.

I also went to several other reputable sites including Popular Mechanics, International Business Times, Daily Mail, etc.

What is NASA's plan for averting a Yellowstone super-volcano disaster? According to the BBC, this:

They believe the most viable solution could be to drill up to 10km down into the supervolcano, and pump down water at high pressure. The circulating water would return at a temperature of around 350C (662F), thus slowly day by day extracting heat from the volcano.

This would accomplish two things (they think). First, it could relieve building pressure at Yellowstone to avoid a catastrophic eruption. Second, they want to harness the heat of Yellowstone for power purposes.

Here's a big problem. Not everyone is convinced this will prevent an eruption. In fact, several sites have experts concerned that it could CAUSE an eruption.

I would suggest you read the multiple sources and draw your own conclusions. Here's my 2 cents (maybe not even worth that much). We've been told that there is nothing imminent to worry about at Yellowstone. If that's the case, why this urgent and super-expensive project? To me, that infers that the situation is more serious than we're being led to believe. But, there's so much crazy Yellowstone stuff out there, you owe it to yourself to do your own research and be careful what websites you trust for information.

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