News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?. Parent comment

Re:Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geot... by elil17 on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @03:49PM (#35705720)
Fiberglass/FRP is an interesting one. I believe the limiting factor there would be that the polymers used would slowly degrade/weaken over time due to chemical aging. Fiberglass boats last up to 50 years but that is in a harsher environment - not sure how long you could go on land. Perhaps some polymers could be formulated to last that long, I'm not sure.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geot... by dieselgate on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @04:23PM (#35706232)
They can last a lot longer than that but that’s about the duration that frp has existed for boats, probably early ‘60s is when production boats started to use frp hulls.

Frp is great for fuel tanks and exhaust systems - it’s superior to stainless for these applications (corrosion resistance being key factor). But yes as mentioned by sibling UV will definitely degrade

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geot... by mikem170 on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @04:02PM (#35705929)
UV from sunlight degrades fiberglass/FRP over time. I believe that boats are painted to protect them from this, and need to be recoated periodically because the uv sunlight will degrade the paint eventually, also.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geot... by elil17 on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @06:01PM (#35707305)
Seems unlikely that you’d have a reliable source of paint for 1000 years, which might be the limiting factor.

But there’s always some rate of chain scission, even in the absence of UV/water/whatever. I just have no idea whether that has a meaningful impact on material properties over 1000 years.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geot... by heavyset_go on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @07:33PM (#35708091)
I feel like if you're really hard pressed for a UV blocker you could just use mud.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geot... by svachalek on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @06:36PM (#35707648)
Yeah I've seen old boats turn to dust. UV utterly destroys fiberglass given a little time.
[ Parent | on HN ]