This is a parody gone mad. Green advocates howl about the issues of nuclear waste storage, arguing that nuclear energy becomes impractical due to the need for long term safe storage, in some cases tens of thousands to millions of years, or as the EPA puts it “25,000 generations”. The Yucca Mountain project was shut down in April 2010 because nobody seems to have the will to actually store nuclear waste below ground. Meanwhile, the nuclear industry stockpiles used fuel rods near major cities in holding pools, and they are running out of room. Are we safer this way? I think not. Thanks Obama.
It seems that ‘Carbon storage’ faces the same dilemma. Can it be safely stored for thousands of years? Or will it turn into a tree killing zone like this one below?
Tree Kill Zone, near Mammoth Mountain CA
More here from USGS on the Mammoth Lakes CO2 leak.
CO2 sequestration illustrated below, relies upon putting CO2 directly into underground storage. Ironically, using salt domes, just like Yucca mountain, and even less secure coal mines.
‘Carbon storage’ faces leak dilemma: Study
CCS supporters say the sequestered carbon would slow the pace of man-made warming. It would buy time for politicians to forge an effective treaty on greenhouse gases and wean the global economy off cheap but dirty fossil fuels.
Critics say CCS could be dangerous if the stored gas returns to the atmosphere. They also argue that its financial cost, still unknown, could be far greater than tackling the source of the problem itself.
The new research, published by the journal Nature Geoscience, wades into the debate with an estimate of capturing enough carbon to help limit warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the figure set in last December’s Copenhagen Accord.
…
The gas will have to be stored for tens of thousands of years to avoid becoming a threat to future generations, a scenario similar to that for nuclear waste, it says.
This means less than one percent of the stored volume can be allowed to leak from the chamber per 1,000 years.
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Gee, where have we heard this before?
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Actually, if it all leaked out over 1000 years that would be good. We won’t have fossil fuels to burn 200+ years from now, and boosting CO2 will help offset the natural cooling that precedes glaciation
The new research, published by the journal Nature Geoscience, wades into the debate with an estimate of capturing enough carbon to help limit warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the figure set in last December’s Copenhagen Accord.
Based on the literature that appears to me to be correct, this amounts to 3.6 doublings of atmospheric CO2 concentration. We don’t need CCS. We’ve got plenty of time to get the 400 to 500 new reactors built so we can retire most of the coal plants. Of course, the rest of the world needs to get busy, too. China and India will need that number of reactors, too.
There are better ways to store nuke waste. Glass suspension is an interesting technology that can limit radioactivity and contain the particles in a low-cost medium. It can then be dispersed to reduce risk.
Of course, it’s still nuclear waste, and nobody wants that. Even if it’s in perfectly safe radioactivity limits. Thanks, environmentalist alarmists.
I’d like to respectfully disagree with you on part of this, sir.
“spent” nuclear fuel consists of two main parts: fissile material that can be used for new fuel rods, and valuable rare earths. Reprocess the fuel properly and there is little need for long-term storage.
Long-term storage of unprocessed nuclear waste was a tarded idea from the outset. James Earl Carter decided we should forego reprocessing as an example to the world. Well, the World has spoken, and what they’ve said is, take your example and shove it.
Such rogue states as France, England, and Japan are all reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. France just opened a new facility that uses 3% as much energy as the old 1970’s technology to extract the usable uranium and plutonium.
While I’m writing, I’ll suggest that within 50 years we will have improved processes for creating DME from that CO2 we want to sequester right now; DME being a miracle chemical that can replace gasoline as a primary transportation fuel. I would think it inadvisable to sequester CO2 in a manner which would make it inaccessible for our future transportation needs anyway.
I think the last paragraph in the T of I story is the most telling: “It [the International Energy Agency] estimates that over the past two years, countries have committed 26 billion dollars in CCS projects. Thanks to this funding, “between 19 and 43″ large-scale demonstration projects would be launched by 2020.” We can and should reduce CO2 & other GHG emissions now. Maybe sequestering can allow for the safe use of fossil fuels in a few decades.
Thanks, Anthony, for mentioning two of my favorite gripes! Storing high-level spent fuel rods in water pools next to Lake Michigan (Zion reactor etc.) and over critical groundwater supplies (Clinton, IL and others) is just damn stupid!! Yucca Mountain wasn’t perfect, but it sure the hell was more secure than this approach!
Regarding carbon dioxide storage….jeez! The energy demands alone (for carbon dioxide capture, purification, transport and compression) makes this a born loser, not to mention the long-term risks!
Carbon dioxide is actually a valuable resource, as soon as this is recognized, the game will change.
Very interesting. I am aware of the issue at Mammoth Mountain concerning the dead trees around Horseshoe Lake. Never thought about it from the CO2 sequestration standpoint – if the sequestered CO2 (and I don’t know enough about how effective the sequestration is – Anthony, or any one else – perhaps an expert in this area as to how effective it is) did migrate over time, I can see the disaster it could cause. Of course, that depends on how fast migration occurred, trees in the proximity, etc.
What Mike says: …but even more telling than that is it says 26 billion over the past two years… …Thanks to this funding, “between 19 and 43″ large-scale demonstration projects would be launched by 2020.”
Excuse me but if the money has been committed, shouldn’t they be launched now? Just in case reason doesn’t win the day, and it’s no sure bet it will, I don’t want those poor coal miners in West Virginia, Kentucky, Wyoming, China, and Oz to lose their jobs. Let’s get the ball rolling on this CCS business now (even if it’s not going to work).
Mike says:
June 27, 2010 at 8:53 pm
I think the last paragraph in the T of I story is the most telling: “It [the International Energy Agency] estimates that over the past two years, countries have committed 26 billion dollars in CCS projects. Thanks to this funding, “between 19 and 43″ large-scale demonstration projects would be launched by 2020.” We can and should reduce CO2 & other GHG emissions now. Maybe sequestering can allow for the safe use of fossil fuels in a few decades.
CCS technology is in its infancy. I wouldn’t count on it, nor would I dismiss it.
Some folk’s stupidity needs to be sequestered fro 10,000 generations.
(But five will do.)
This means less than one percent of the stored volume can be allowed to leak from the chamber per 1,000 years.
===============================
Gee, where have we heard this before?
Well, not from nuclear waste plans. One percent would be a disaster. There’s no comparison between the toxicity of nuclear waste and CO2.
And no comparison here. We’re currently putting CO2 straight in the air. If we bury it, and it then slowly leaks, that’s still a lot better than direct emission.
If you read the linked article carefully, the trees were killed not by CO2 in the air, but in the soil. If this is a real danger, there are plenty of treeless sites that could be used.
That CO2 sequestration illustration makes it all look so very simple. Reminds me of the Sunday newspaper supplements in full color with all the marvels the future will bring — flying cars, individual jetpacks, rapid speed monorails, and on and on …
Flights of fantasy are so cheap till someone has to pay the piper, either in the form of piles of money or, even worse, their lives in the event there is release of all the stored CO2. Not likely to happen? Tell that to the residents of the Gulf coast about how unlikely a massive oil leak is — all it takes is one.
Duncan,
Thanks I didn’t know about di methyl ether (DME) as a fuel.
CS comes with a guarantee that terrible accidents would occur. No containment is fail safe for a high pressure gas. A leak along fracture zones could quietly fill up a valley and kill not only trees but every living thing in the valley you and me included. The risk from stored nuclear w is far less. We could also send n-waste to deep space where in a few million years there would be no trace of it.
I wonder at the alarmism over nuclear waste storage. It is quite irrational. Mother nature has managed to do it for billions of years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor
Note: “Remarkably, most of the non-volatile fission products and actinides have only moved centimeters in the veins during the last 2 billion years.”
Of course the Aussie outback is probably even better, being in the middle of a plate with low rainfall, a lack of significant earthquakes etc. But try and sell that to the Aussie public…
Anthony/Mods, could you provide the link to the Carbon Capture & Geological Storage process diagram? That’s a good one to have access to at a moment’s notice, thanks!
REPLY: right click on the image, then copy the link -A
The trees in the picture are dead for one of three reasons – (i) their roots have not been able to take up the water and minerals they need, (ii) a herbicide has been applied or (iii) old age. The uniformity of death rules out old age.
I would bet a whole English pound that their roots have been disturbed or the water table altered in a manner they could not survive.
My fear is that the picture will further the fanciful notion of CO2 being a pollutant. People will look at the picture, read the sign and conclude that “excessive” CO2 in the air has poisoned the trees. They will infer that CO2 is a herbicide. This is one of the most effective lies the warmists have told because people are naturally concerned about air quality. But a lie it most certainly is, and one that needs to be nailed.
In my geologist days I did a stint working on nuclear waste storage for the US government. The best idea I heard was to lower it down-hole when testing a nuke. The periphery of the blast zone forms a metre thick spherical layer of impermeable glass. The NTS was already thoroughly contaminated so Yucca Mountain seemed like the perfect site.
Anywhere that isn’t near where I live ;^)
Mike says:
June 27, 2010 at 8:53 pm
“Maybe sequestering can allow for the safe use of fossil fuels in a few decades.”
Define safe, and while you are at it Mike, explain to us what exactly it is about CO2 that makes it unsafe. An remember, we’re talking trace amounts of CO2 – not at an atmosphere of pressure with nothing else.
As of several years ago , the USA sequestered 3% of our CO2 and today, likley double that … in Oil wells.
Going price was $10/ton. …. Not to get rid of it: THEY PAY FOR IT. It enhances oil recovery.
We also Sequester a third of our Carbon in effect, by planting Trees.
The REAL Fatal Flaw is that the IPCC considers Fish Bones — Calcium Carbonate — to be immediately recycled – – since they DISSOLVE IN WATER.
They then ignore the persistant value of 5.4 years for CO2 residence ( = 19% is taken out every year ) that both our Chemists & Radioactive Decay people have measured.
The true secret is that it DOES dissolve – – 250 million years later, as part of the Geological Process. Someone took part of a sentance from a Geology Textbook & used it out of context.
So the reduction in FISH BONES – – because we Preferentially fish the Bony fish – – Account for 94.6 % of the CO2 gain in the Air.
Think:
>> We know the 100 year-residence-time WORKS, both for Now & at the End of the Ice Age Warming.
>> We know the 5.4 is a MEASURED Quantity (call it Input). It cannot be wrong.
THUS : 5.4% of the problem is in the “Input” so the Rest must be in the OUTPUT NOT HAPPENING.
The “100-year” Residence Seems to work because it is from the change in the BALANCE between Input (Smokestacks) & output (permanent Loss e.g. Fish bones).
But How can an Ice Age do what MAN does ?
… BOTH our Fishing, and the Ice Age Warming, favor the BoneLESS fishes — because the Squid, octopus, jellyfish, etc. are mostly Tropical.
Further, the CO2 fall after 1500 A.D. can be ascribed to the Stewart Island Impact Tidal Wave … killing fishermen. Thus more Bony Fish, and less CO2.
It has always made no sense that CO2 went UP after Ice Sheets melted & trees grew there instead: CO2 should have gone DOWN.
It could only have been an Oceanic effect, as there is more Ocean than land, it could push Up harder than the Trees could pull Down.
(PS the AGW explantion for 1500 AD: EVIL COLUMBUS the PLAGUE CARRIER, is bunk: New World Populations did NOT fall: Parish records show populations repeatedly reach the same point, set by what the Land can support, then drop, then rise again. Any Larg pre-Modern Life Loss – – simply reduced the number of people who Starved. ).
When I read Alaskan fishermen complaining about Squid showing up in their nets when Squid once were rarely seen North of Mexico — & I realized the recent Warming could NOT have changed Squid’s range by more than a tenth of that, the “Eureka” Moment hit me.
All 3 affect THE BALANCE: of ingo & outgo:
Fishing, Major Warming (remember, we are talking 12 degrees F. Hemisphere, not the last 30 years’ paltry few TENTHS of a degree, as Hansen lectured Letterman on recently), and in Reverse: Asteroids.
Man is still small compared to the Oceans but we can effect things by favoring 1 fish over another.
It’s been 140 years since we nearly exterminated the Sperm Whale.
Fishing is still the most Disruptive thing we do.
If we establish No-Fish Zones ala’ New Zealand, we fix the Problem. And make a Profit: in more Fish.
CO2 is what makes us breath. If we didn’t have CO2 in our lungs, and instead had an abundance of oxygen, we would actually feel out of breath.
Based on this information, I can report, graypaper style, that all this hyperventilating and panic attacks can be traced back to AGW’s wrongly thinking CO2 is bad and are therefore avoiding consuming it. Apparently they think cow’s milk is very bad for you too.
http://drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Hyperventilation_-_makes_you_feel_as_if_you_can%27t_get_your_breath
Carbon sequestration is a great idea as long as one does it according to Hammurabi. Instead of building stocks of perishables such as the EECs “Butter Mountain” and “Wine Lake”, you store non-perishable food during the years of plenty.
When the lean years come, the stocks of grain and other foods mitigate the famines that would otherwise occur. Imagine what would happen to a planet with 7 billion people if there was another 1816, “The Year Without a Summer”.
There will be another 1816 so if our leaders were as able as Hammurabi they would be sequestering carbon in the form of food rather than rocks!
The nuclear waste long term storage problem is made even nuttier by a requirement that the sites have to be surrouned by HazMat signs that will last as long as the material is hazardous. But wait, that’s not the greenest bit. The signs have to be intelligible by people who, a thousand or a million years from now, might not speak english or recognize symbology like a skull and crossbones.
Hard to believe, isn’t it?
Duncan,
Right on! Jimmy Carter killed the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods in the USA. While I consider his decision to be unfortunate, he was well qualified to make it because he was our only president with nuclear reactor training. Furthermore, there have been plenty of presidents since Jimmy Carter and none had the testicular fortitude to reverse Jimmy’s ban until George Bush II.
Unfortunately, we are now so far behind the Brits and French, it would be futile to create wet reprocessing (PUREX etc) capacity here. We need to leap-frog the French (pun intended) by introducing Gen IV nuclear plants with integral dry reprocessing.
You are probably well aware of LFTRs (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors) so I include the following link for those who may not have heard of them:
http://energyfromthorium.com/2008/11/21/joe-bonomettis-tech-talk-at-google/
I cant wait till all this CO2 bunk is over. Tired of worrying about being taxed to breathe. Any event I want to see REAL environmental issues taken up such as murcury and lots of pollution in our drinking water. Fluoride needs to be removed from our drinking water. Do some research and youll see even from the government reports that its toxic and causes a host of ailments includeing bone cancer, Thyroid issues, arthritis, hip/bone fractures. Do some research, learn for yourself dont just take their word for it that its good for your teeth. GMO’s are a huge problem also. Check those out, just look up saftey reports for GMO’s and fluoride. GMO’s almost all cause sterility, mutations, low birth weights and within 3 generations almost complete sterility, causes organ failures too. (Look up! GMO causes organ failure in huffington post) Think about that… 80% or more of corn in US is GMO, same with Soy, and cotton is lower. High Friutose Corn Syrup study was done at Harvard Medical compareing between sugar and HFCS, Keeping the same calorie count the rat who ate the HFCS was fatter. Same amount of calories. These are real problems not CO2 which I love cause without it plants wouldnt be able to breath and exhale oxygen for me to breathe.