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Originally Posted by Piotrsko
I dunno: how does one process the steam from dumping a major great lake into such a volcano? Firstly you have this conflagration which is in the mega tonnage, then all the ejecta that remains airborne causes global cooling, then the massive reformation of the local earth crust tending to mess up any structural thing.
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Well just like any other steam power plant, the turbine generator side is always similar. It's the source of the heat that changes. Nuclear, natural gas, coal, that's the difference on the heat side, that heat boils water in boilers the steam is ran through a turbine that is connected to a generator and then through a condenser to turn it back into water that can be pumped back into the boiler to make steam again. The water is never "used", just recycled over and over. What changes is what is that heat source to boil the water. In nuclear's case it is just other water in a separate loop that is kept at a high pressure so it's very hot but won't flash to steam. With coal or natural gas it's a fire directly under the boiler. With molten rock I would think you would do something like the nuclear but run the primary high pressure, high temperature loop down into the lava pool and then use that superheated water to make steam. You might even be able to use a liquid metal in the primary loop like sodium for even more power. The USSR did that with some of their best submarines but the danger there is sodium will react badly with all the ocean surrounding them if there was ever a leak. Sort of a glass jaw for something designed for battle.