It was a tenth of that, 100,000 tons, that caused the Lake Nyos disaster
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
7000 ft below the city of Decatur, Illinois, population 74,710 people, is a high pressure reservoir which contains 1 million tons of CO2.
From the press release:
One of the largest carbon sequestration projects in the U.S., the Illinois Basin – Decatur Project (IBDP) has reached its goal of capturing 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and injecting it deep underground in the Mount Simon Sandstone formation beneath Decatur, Illinois. The project is designed to demonstrate the feasibility of carbon capture and storage. IBDP director Robert Finley talked about the million-ton milestone with News Bureau physical sciences editor Liz Ahlberg. Finley is director of the Advanced Energy Technology Institute at the Illinois State Geological Survey, part of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois.
The reservoir has been created to demonstrate the viability of carbon sequestration – capturing large quantities on carbon, to prevent the CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere.
The University of Illinois scientists responsible for this demonstration project assure us that the reservoir does not pose a safety threat. According to a University of Illinois press release;
“Extensive monitoring takes place during and after injection to be sure the stored CO2 stays in place. Monitoring techniques include using geophysical technology to confirm the position of the CO2 underground and wells to monitor groundwater and soils.
No out-of-bounds health, safety or environmental risks were observed from this properly designed and managed storage site. Appropriate risk mitigation and management plans were an integral part of the overall project planning. Extensive monitoring took place before, during and now after the injection to be sure the CO2 stays in place. The first line of monitoring begins deep below the ground, so we know if any leakage occurs long before any CO2 might reach the surface.”
They’re probably right – when you create a demonstration project, a showpiece for what you hope will become a lucrative business, you want to make sure nothing goes wrong. I’m sure that elaborate precautions have been taken to prevent any possibility of adverse news, in the hope that this reservoir will be the first of many.
However, as the scientists responsible for the project admit, a serious carbon sequestration effort will need to store a lot more than a million tons of CO2. “… One million tons is scalable in its behavior to the 3 million tons that would be emitted annually from a typical medium-sized, coal-fired power plant. …”
If just one of those proposed sequestration projects suffers a major containment breach, say if an earthquake cracks the geological structure, or if a mistake or greed leads to the reservoir being overloaded, the result could be a disaster.
In Africa, in 1986, an abrupt release of an estimated 100,000 – 300,000 tons of CO2 killed 2,500 people up to 25km (15.5 miles) from the source of the release.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos#1986_disaster
A similar release near a major city would kill a sizeable fraction of the city’s population. The region of devestation was comparable to the loss of life which would be caused by a large nuclear explosion – the only reason a lot more people didn’t die, was Lake Nyos is a sparsely inhabited rural region.
The Lake Nyos CO2 release was so deadly, because CO2 is heavier than air – when the huge CO2 cloud boiled out of lake Nyos, it hugged the ground, displacing all breathable air to an elevation 10s of ft above ground level, suffocating almost everyone in its path.
Its not just people and animals which would be affected – car engines would also stall, as the blanket of CO2 choked off the supply of oxygen.
If carbon sequestration becomes commonplace, sooner or later someone will get greedy and careless, and will be careless in their choice of geological reservoir, and / or will overload their geological reservoir to boost their bottom line. And that carelessness will, in my opinion, almost inevitably lead to a catastrophic loss of life.
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Well of course storing CO2 underground is feasible.
Of course it isn’t economically viable. And there is no reason to hide the CO2 away from the plants that want it.
And people think that storing long lived radioactive trash (AKA new reactor fuel) underground, is potentially hazardous ?
Just remember that “gravity sucks.” And if you replace suction with compression, things have a habit of popping out from all sorts of nooks and crannies.
The trouble with underground storage of CO2 is that going deeper, just makes the problem worse, because the Temperature lapse rate is working against you instead of for you.
There is NO safe depth to store a highly pressurized poison gas; but if you have to do it, then underneath the University of Illinois, is a good location to do it.
First this is unnecessary and dangerously stupid.
Can we go back to reality please.
“highly pressurized POISON gas.” Your words not mine.
I would vote for storing it in reservoirs under all the Ivy League Schools also
Well old fossil, if you want to present evidence that CO2 at the levels being stored underground is NOT a poison, I am all ears.
Even Oxygen stored at such pressures and in such amounts, is a poison gas.
Wrong town. U of I is at Champaign and I don’t think there is a CO2 reservoir there.
Read MY words; I said under the University of Illinois, not under Decatur Illinois; I don’t care where the U is.
The problem is, that it is NOT under the University of Illinois. The U of I is in Champaign-Urbana Illinois, 50 miles away from Decatur. Depending on the size of the reservoir, it may be close.
The University of Illinois is NOT in Decatur, it is in Champaign-Urbana about 50 miles east of Decatur. Depending on the size of the reservoir, parts of it may be close. I wonder who sold out Decatur?? Why did they not put it under the U of I ???
Sequestering the carbon dioxide, changing the total amount in our environment is natural? Praise Gaia!
When this bubble bursts it will not only result in ‘a catastrophic loss of life,’ it will actually produce a sudden carbon dioxide overload imbalance to the environment, at least locally. What Me Worry?, A. E. Newman
It’s self healing, if all that CO2 leaks out and kills 50,000 people then their future carbon footprint is eliminated, so no environmental harm is done overall.
My sarcasm filter just plugged. 😉
Holdren and Ehrlich’s answer to the population problem, the CO2 bomb.
I’m wondering what will happen with this reservoir if the whole sequestration paradigm collapses and this company goes out of business. Who will keep tabs on it then?
Ah, but
no problem/sarc
Are these same scientists believers in AGW or are they just cashing in? In the first instance I don’t think their assurances do it for me in the second they are trying to make a quid so they have a vested interest. Either way if I lived in Decatur I’d want their photos on the post office wall just in case someone needs to sue after the big event. BTW did the university assess what plants could do with those million tons of food? A million extra tonnes of corn would be more cost effective than the internment.
Well,we’ll depend on the cost savings inherent in deregulation and reduction in oversight to see us through. As history has shown, corporations are thoroughly trustworthy……..
as are the politicians who claim to regulate them.
And, as are the academicians who seek to confirm their bias and income.
The cost of CCS is effectively infinite. As there will never be a future time when its sudden release would not be catastrophic for nearby residents.
At least with high level radioactive waste, the radioactivity eventually decays, and the material is not in a state prone to sudden release. Monitoring at Yucca Mtn repository would mainly entail monitoring ground water levels after a section is filled with containers and sealed. No sudden release is possible. And this just a single site, that has a planned capacity to hold all past, present, and future high level waste. Yucca Mtn is in the middle of very large restricted access high security government range.
With CCS, thousands of storage sites across the country are needed for this to “work.” Most would be under and near populated areas.
Pepsi-Cola? 🙂
Why not compress and liquefy the stuff.
There are plenty of companies that use CO2 in their produccts, or as one of the components in the formulation.
I’d rather have a nuclear plant next door.
Yep. Give me nuclear any day, which is why the investment by govts into thorium based technologies should be substantially increased and development accelerated.
Well, there is a nuclear plant somewhat close to Decatur- At Clinton.
http://esrimedia.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/index.html?appid=0c46cd1e8ee04cf693acd2790614a68a
Decatur gets the double jeopardy question.
Clinton is #12 on the tour. (I worked for IL Power Co. at the time it was built and was the subject of a “60 Minutes”investigation.)
Sorry- #19- and I put my glasses on.
1 million to 38 billion… makes sense to me /sarc
38 billion per annum!!
so we will need about 38,000 sites like this per year. Some of the stuff that AGW comes up with is ridiculous.
There is a nuclear power plant in Clinton which is 20 minutes north of Decatur.
The demonization of CO2 is pushing people out of the bounds of sanity.
What is the compelling reason to keep more CO2 out of the atmosphere, at all costs?
Someone please explain to me how reducing CO2 would make this planet safer for humans. I mean a rigorous explanation- not alarmist talking point and BS.
because the planet has a fever
It’s the alarmist scientists, sheep politicians & rabid environmentalists that have the fever.
jaffa68
January 14, 2015 at 7:40 am
“because the planet has a fever”
I wouldn’t call it a fever. That’s belittling it. Most of the planet is actually red hot to white hot.
Not that it has anything to do with CO2; it’s all nuclear energy.
The planet does have a fever and the only prescription is More Cowbell.
More like the alarmists have a brain eating virus.
This explains why Africans remove their vests.
Lets see…Compress CO2 and it gets COLD…Inject it underground and it cools the groundwater supply…The compressed CO2 invades the Ground Water supply and we have …. Soda Water…Nice…bubbly…Soda.
Now, if instead the compressed CO2 is pumped through above ground pipes in urban environs, you have Air Conditioning Coils removing the UHI effect.
Right on! As I recall from my geothermal class, something like 95% of the volume of the earth is > 1000C. Al Gore was off by a factor of 1,000. And about 97% is hotter than 100C. We float around on little islands of slag, which we optimistically call terra firm. When we finally figure out how to drill through the crust effectively, we will have enough energy to see us through the big projects of terraforming Mars and Venus, driven by the real existential threat to mankind, the return of the glaciers. By then we should be making inroads into mining Titan for its methane, for plastic feedstocks to be used for 3D printing city-sized Mars colonies and atmosphere generating plants. Powered of course by, plants. And CO2. Where was I?
The future is going to require A LOT more energy than people imagine. We need to be much more radical in our thinking about finding a new revolution in energy generation.
Bryan A
January 14, 2015 at 10:11 am
Compressing a gas makes it hot. PV=nRT
PV = nRT also means that cooling a gas at constant pressure is accompanied by a reduction in volume.
Then we need more cowbell…
Storing co2 underground will not make any difference to the Earth’s surface temperature.
I wonder why so many oil companies have given up fighting climatism?
“I wonder why so many oil companies have given up fighting climatism?”
— Because they stand to profit from regulations that will make it extremly difficult for new competitors to enter the market.
— Because they can pass on all costs to the consumers (with a little profit added in as well).
— Because they plan to lobby and write the laws and regulations in such a way that favors them.
Any more questions?
Why would oil companies fight the CAGW meme? They already know there’s no practical replacement for oil for the transportation industry. And there’s no replacement AT ALL for the petrochemical industry. Best to do as they have been and ignore it, or do as BP did and skim a few billion off the top of the Climate Economy themselves.
Why would oil companies be concerned with the pseudoscience of CAGW?
What regulations have actually benefited the oil industry?
How do they “pass on all costs to consumers” when oil companies don’t even directly set the price of their product?
Hi Jimbo,
“I wonder why so many oil companies have given up fighting climatism?”
Oil companies didn’t give up, they don’t argue with IPeCaC et al, because climastrology is good for business; a price on carbon (dioxide) makes coal less attractive and the world’s thermal power generation switches to gas; let’s face it, even most ecotards aren’t quite stupid enough to think that yesterday’s energy sources (wind and sunlight) are the answer to today’s energy needs, let alone tomorrow’s. Burning gas instead of coal to keep the lights on means more profit from more volume sold, but also drives up the demand for gas so the price per cubic metre also climbs.
Happy days for the CEO and shareholders of Climatemate Oil Co.
The use of CO2 injection for Improved Oil Recovery (IOR) is old news and particularly for fields where produced gas contains a significant CO2; since the operator would have to separate the CO2 from the produced gas before delivery anyway; might as well obtain some benefit for the effort.
What probably makes CCS more appealing to oil companies is that at the beginning (when there is subsidy money to earn) oil companies undoubtedly have the expertise to make it look like it can work.
“Give us your unwanted thin air and we’ll make it disappear down our wells…”. For a price.
The next consideration is that the most obvious reservoirs for carbon (dioxide) sequestration are depleted oil or gas fields. Compressed CO2 can demonstrably be injected (in place of the oil or gas that was allowed to flow out of the now depleted porous sand or limestone), demonstrably be trapped by a competent impermeable cap rock (since the oil or gas didn’t escape during the time between oil formation and production) and there will already be capital intensive infrastructure in-situ to handle the process; that can include a platform or pad, a bunch of existing wells (just don’t tell the champions of ‘Green Jobs’ that the old wells are knackered), pipelines and a trained workforce who may otherwise be heading to the dole office since their field is finished.
Climatemate Oil Co. Ltd. will also have happy bean-counters if the field is re-tasked for CO2 sequestration because then the field can be used for revenue earning activity long enough after economic oil production has ended. If they are clever, Climatemate Oil Co. can then flog the CCS field off to a gullible warming ‘solutions’ company who’s core business is sweeping thin air under the mat. That way Climatemate Oil Co. Ltd. can monetise an asset that would otherwise be written off (talk about money for old rope!) and they can hand-ball the liability of permanently abandoning the field and decommissioning all the facilities in a ‘sustainable’ manner, leaving no ‘footprint’ behind to someone else. That’s a hefty expense that every oil company has to cover after the field has stopped paying a dividend that’s not only passed to the gullible warming ‘solutions’ company, the suckers will have paid for it.
Happy days indeed for the CEO and shareholders of Climatemate Oil Co.
…or perhaps I am just too cynical for the good of the children’s children.
“Combining carbon capture and storage with enhanced oil recovery using carbon dioxide injection can help produce incremental oil while economically storing CO2. This can provide significant benefits, especially if value-added opportunities for productively using captured CO2 from industrial sources are encouraged and pursued.” http://www.aogr.com/magazine/editors-choice/industrial-co2-supply-crucial-for-eor
The biggest user of industrial carbon dioxide gas was for oil recovery. They would have had to sequester it anyway.
Petroleum company CEO: “You want us to do what?”
Progressive Politician: “We want you to pump as much CO2 as possible into the holes you make in the ground.”
Petroleum company CEO: “You know that’s going to cost a lot of money, right?”
Progressive Politician: “Yes. Money is no object. We’re saving the world. Taxpayers want this.”
Petroleum company CEO: “And then you’ll pay us in perpetuity to monitor these deposits?”
Progressive Politician: “Yes. Money is no object. We’re saving the world. Taxpayers want this.”
Petroleum company CEO: “Okay.”
Any oil executive will tell you that it is no skin off their teeth if oil is made to be more expensive.
They know exactly where it is, and where to go and get it, and they will go and get it, whenever it is worth their while.
I heard an oil industry expert this morning say that there is nothing new about “facking”, they’ve been doing it since the 1880s.
What IS new, and mere decades old, is “horizontal drilling.
It is the ability to drill horizontally for a mile or more, while maybe just as deep, that has made more oil available at lower cost. Well right now, maybe the Saudis have bombed the price, because they are trying to put the HD fracksters out of business.
But like I said. They know where it is, and they will go get it when they damn well please; or when we holler loud enough for more energy.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for more renewable energy. Old Sol, will deliver his one kW /m^2, and if you want more well you can just go and whistle Dixie.
Ain’t gonna happen.
I power my laptop from a source that is over one MW/m^2, and for mere pennies per hour.
Early on, American Industry was given a demonstration of what happpens when you try to buck t his administration. General Motors was commandeered, all GM executives were replaced with Obama cronies, and $10 billion was stolen from preferred investors and given to the unions. It is not good business to disagree with this president.
“Someone please explain to me how reducing CO2 would make this planet safer for humans. I mean a rigorous explanation- not alarmist talking point and BS” You’re asking the wrong group of people for that, unless it’s just a rhetorical question.
By “someone” I meant representative(s) of the, ahem, Esteemed Opposition who show up here on a regular basis.
A challenge, so to speak.
Here is your explanation:
1. Using the CO2 boogyman, install the one world government.
2. Reduce the human population by ~95%.
3. For the remaining ruling class humans, the planet safer. Not so mch for the other 85%. (Think hunger games: habitation zones, limited travel and access…)
This is the end goal of the UN, not alarmist talking points and not BS.
Eric
This is truly the most enormous waste of money I’ve heard about, and yes I have seen the legions of empty buses choking up the streets of Norwich, England every day. But not only is this a completely futile exercise it’s actually bloody dangerous too when it all leaks back out again. I’d have fracking and nuclear power near my place but the silent killer buried beneath my house is definitely a risk I wouldn’t want to take.
Bloody right, mate. That heavy stuff’ll seep out and clog me gunger.
andydaines, don’t worry they got it covered. Did I hear fracking? Did I hear the EPA? Surely they will stop such poisoning of our natural resources. I see problems in the pipleline, and I will say nothing (for now) of another Lake Nyos type disaster.
And here is the EPA on the issue of co2 sequestration and water contamination. I hear lawsuits in the future.
http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/wells_sequestration.cfm
http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/class6/gsregulations.cfm
Ahhhhhhh, CO2 gets into my water? Beefeaters will handle it nicely. It can also be used to clean the battery terminals. There is no end to the benefits of CO2.
Someone with a better grasp of the relevant science and engineering will need to check the viability of the method, but mining by carbonic acid leaching?
hanelyp: I worked briefly in a uranium solution-mining plant, doing safety and debottlenecking studies. “Depending on the type of leaching environment used the uranium will be complexed as either a uranyl sulphate, predominantly UO2(SO4)34-, in acid leach conditions; or a uranyl carbonate, predominantly UO2(CO3)34- in a carbonate leach system.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Mining-of-Uranium/In-Situ-Leach-Mining-of-Uranium/
I was thinking along the same lines as Jimbo. While I see CO2 sequestration as economically and scientifically stupid, I doubt it’s any more (or less) dangerous than fracking. So how many people who want to ban fracking are fans of CO2 sequestration?
“I doubt it’s any more (or less) dangerous than fracking.”
Fracking is done with a liquid (water), CO2 is a gas.
One of the first things you learn when working with idustrial safety is that while liquids under pressure are relatively harmless, gasses under pressure are very dangerous.
Tty: CO2 is a liquid at room temperature when under sufficient pressure. It’s stored for soda fountains as a liquid.
What’s the Empty Bus story?
It’s got no coverage in these here Untied States.
What could possibly go wrong? I would like to see how carbon sequestration works, it kind of sounds like a scam to me.
This could explain all of the loud booms people are hearing.
http://addins.wrex.com/blogs/weather/2013/12/strange-booms-startle-many-in-northern-illinois
http://guardianlv.com/2014/02/mysterious-booms-reported-in-kentucky-and-illinois/
These reports say otherwise. They have their own explanation for the booms. Cryoseisms.
But worse yet…. cryoseisms could be that..”other major instability” that might release the CO2 suddenly, if a big one occurred in Decatur.
And they are apparently very common in the upper Mid-West around Illinois, more common than earth quakes by far, and highly localized. What is not clear (to me anyway) is if they are deep enough to affect the rock formations storing the CO2.
Comment on a youtube video regarding cryoseisms: (6 months ago)
“Yeah, this sounds nothing like “The Bloop”. And if your wondering, “The Bloop” was recorded back in 1997 and was said to be an Ice quake by the NOAA ( National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), but the sound could be heard by many sensors, over 5,000 km apart (3106.86 ft), it lasted a minute…” –LionHeartLeon
My money is on sonic booms being “ducted’ by atmospheric conditions into a distant region. This happened about 5 years ago and I believe was reported here, though not generally attributed to the same cause.
I am a big fan of sequestering CO2. I plant a lot of trees, then I cut them, burn them for heating, and plant more trees. I also build structures with wood from trees.
Couldn’t these egghead researchers realize that trees are safer then storing CO2 under our cities, I mean how stupid is that?
And yet our mad politicians deem it necessary to cut down thousands of tons of trees per day, process (chip & dry) them, ship them over the pond and burn them instead of coal – all in the name of ‘saving he planet’. As I said, mad!
And if what I read recently is correct the ships going East pass similar ships going West carrying the product of Norway’s forests to Canada.
It’s not about storing co2 away safely, it’s ALL ABOUT MONEY, It always has been. It is tantamount to legalized fra-u-d on the populace. In the meantime nature acts by itself via greening of the biosphere.
Back of the napkin: 36,000 of these boondoggles needed EVERY year to hold emissions to zero rise in PPM. But that’s at 2012 levels, so I could be a little off.
Better yet, the trees take in the carbon without incurring compression costs.
I am a big fan of sequestering CO2. I plant a lot of trees, then I cut them, burn them for heating, and plant more trees.
_____________________________________
Then you are not sequestering anything – you are re-releasing the CO2 in your fire.
The concept of sequestering is fine. The only problem is that it is more dangerous than a Russian-designed and Russian-built** nuclear power station – much more dangerous.
Ralph
** If you have lived in Russia, you will know what I mean. All projects and products have so many corners cut, they are perfectly spherical.
Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb?
Well put.
Furthermore, why waste money to “sequester CO2” for unmeasureable benefit when there are 85 billion bbl of oil that could be recovered by CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery but are going begging fore lack of CO2?
@David L. Hagen: Thanks for the link. Interesting, ingenious and logical. ( but the logical part will skip over many peoples heads)
The project is designed to demonstrate the feasibility of carbon capture and storage.
————
It may be feasible, but it damn sure aint necessary.
Who said it’s even feasible, as feasibility also includes economics. Note they haven’t said how much extra energy it takes to transport/extract, pump and pressurize the CO2. It’s an expensive business, which could easily add 50% or more to the price of a KWh generated by a suitably equipped power station. This higher cost would wreak havoc to any economy, driving companies out of business, increasing the price of everything, driving families into fuel poverty, and the old to death. That is far more certain than any supposed minute (hundredths of a degree) temperature constraint 50 or 100 years hence.
Theoretically the cost is infinite. Since there will never be a time that they can stop monitoring and maintaining it every ton of CO2 stored there will have an ongoing cost associated with it.
ilma630:
Saskatchewan Coal Fired Power Plant With Carbon Capture
October 2014, a $1.4 billion coal fired generator, fitted with CCS which will “capture more than 90 percent of the carbon dioxide that would otherwise escape to the atmosphere” was turned on. The plant will capture around one million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year.
Cost to upgrade a 30-year old coal fired power plant was $400 million.
Original plant was rated at 139 MW.
Upgraded coal fire power plant is now rated at 162 MW.
Cost for CCS was a cool $1 billion with a cost over-run between $150 to $200 million ($1.2 billion total). Final cost to be revealed at a later date.
CCS unit needs about 34 MW to operate, resulting in a “parasitic loss” of about 21 per cent of the plant’s power.
18 MW are needed for other systems, reducing the net output to 110 MW or a total of about 32 per cent of the plant’s power.
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=85237
https://decc.blog.gov.uk/2014/10/03/a-momentous-day-for-ccs/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/06/carboncapture-economics-kemp-idUSL6N0S12GI20141006
Even more ridiculous; how much CO2 is released providing the energy need to collect, transport, pump and monitor the sequestered CO2? Is it even 1:1?
A massive leak would be a propaganda victory for the eco-facists, a huge number of people ‘poisoned’ by ‘deadly’ CO2.
Carbon Dioxide is not a poison, but a simple asphyxiant.
What they have done is take a harmless gas that is good for the environment and turn it into a timebomb for the city of Decatur.
It doesn’t matter how well it is managed now, what matters is how it will be managed in the future.
Unless the gas is undergoing a chemical reaction, changing it into something else, it will remain a danger to the inhabitants until it is dispersed.
Will they still be monitoring and renewing worn out sensors and pressure valves in 10 years time? How about 100?
Project has two words that Democrats like to hear: unions, perpetuity.
You forgot insanity.
How about sustainability? (Snark!)
Nuclear storage in Nevada requires 10,000 years or more.
waste at Yucca mtn will be in a stable state, not prone to sudden release. Yucca mtn is in remote, restricted access large government-controlled range. Yucca mtn was chosen for its low seismic risk as well.
“Nuclear storage in Nevada requires 10,000 years or more.”
Yes, but Carbon (dioxide) Capture and Storage anywhere requires infinity years or more
Yes, but Carbon (dioxide) Capture and Storage anywhere requires infinity years or more.
_____________________________
Worth repeating again. The Greens complain how long nuclear waste stays active and dangerous, but CO2 will be active and lethal for millions of years.
I am presuming here that CO2, being fairly stable, will not react with the local geology and become fixed.
Ralph
How do you figure that?
I was addressing my question to DD More.
As a separate issue, the good thing about CO2 storage is that it will be available to be released when the nanotechnologists are running their 3D printers that suck their materials from the carbon in the air.
How good a job do they do on potholes in roads?
‘Nuff said?
What about all that pressurised methane hidden underground all over the world? We must get it all out as quickly as possible!
All this “Advanced Scientific Research” state of the art technology blindly poured into the belief that it will make a difference to the natural world. It is indeed expensive, but no worry it is renewable tax money.
Truly sad news. The madness of crowds….
The Genius Of The Crowd
there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day
and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace
those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love
beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average
but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect
like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock
their finest art
-Charles Bukowski
So this guy Charles Bukowski hates himsellf and all people? Sounds more like laureate of lowlife.
How depressing.
Ick.
This is going to be a forever monitoring project and there will never be a time when some incompetent is put in charge of the job. And people of the future will always know how to maintain the equipment.
Tell me another one.
Bob: Just a stupid comment. If it does stay in the ground for a few hundred tears and CO2 levels begin to fall again to 280ppm, they can then outgas the sequestered CO2 to help the plants out. Otherwise, just a time bomb.
When the CO2 levels fall to 280ppm again, there will be nobody left who knows the CO2 is there, much less how to unsequester it. In the interim, it’s leftist paradise! Good intentions, road to hell?
“No out-of-bounds health, safety or environmental risks were observed from this properly designed and managed storage site. Appropriate risk mitigation and management plans were an integral part of the overall project planning. Extensive monitoring took place before, during and now after the injection to be sure the CO2 stays in place. The first line of monitoring begins deep below the ground, so we know if any leakage occurs long before any CO2 might reach the surface.”
Nothing can go wrogn.
Rgiht.
I’m assuming these quambies have never seen the state of an oil or gas well, or water bore after a life of a few decades, when the casing has corroded, the cement has started to crumble and mobile rock formations in the overburden or movement at faults can have crushed or severed the well.
I’d like to know how they plan to manage integrity of their observation wells and abandoned injection wells over the infinity year lifespan of the CCS project after they’ve pressurised a reservoir with carbonic acid (compared to an old oil well that gets plugged with cement against what ever depleted pressure oil dregs are left in the reservoir after maybe 20-50 years of production).
Since ecotards and activists would have us believe that hydraulic stimulation at the depth of a typical oil or gas reservoir can propagate fractures straight up into aquifers, how do they sleep at night knowing that today’s pilot CCS projects take place in shallower, therefore weaker, formations?
Monitoring for leakage with instruments in the injection or observation wells is all well and good for the press release in TreeHugger.com, but if the reservoir into which CO2 is sequestered is over-pressured to the point of fracturing (not an unreasonable risk) then the shallower depth means less resistance to fracture propagation upwards and since the ‘extensive monitoring’ can at best indicate a pressure relief in the CCS reservoir, I’d like to know how they mitigate the risk that all that dangerous CO2 just buggers off somewhere (like into a fresh water aquifer or back into the atmosphere, where the overwhelming majority of climastrologists say it will drive the lesser-spotted trouser snake to extinction before the Greens have driven the OECD to bankruptcy).
…time for a cup of tea and lie down.
Now there you go confusing people with reality.
Generally speaking, in Nature, the solution to pollution is dilution. If you are crazy enough to believe that CO2 is pollution, it is even crazier to go to huge expense to concentrate and pressurize it near where people live.
My viewpoint is that, “People who use the term Carbon Pollution, are.”
+1
While there may be a toxicity problem with CO2 the major issue would be that of inducing unwanted seismic effects. We know from previous attempts to inject large quanties of fluids into geological foundations that this can cause tremors. The anti-fracking brigade use this as one of their major objections. The irony is that injecting gas instead of fracking fluid is MUCH more dangerous. Not only are the amounts of CO2 larger but the energy required to pressurise a gas is MUCH higher than for a liquid and that energy is stored in the compressed gas for an extended period not released as in the case of fracking fluid..
Consider a simple example, take a 1 litre soda bottle and fill it with water and raise the pressure until it bursts. Since water is essentially incompressible the energy release is trivial and all that happens is a split seam and the water flows out. Do the same thing with compressed air and you get a loud explosion and lots of flying plastic.
The IDBP project reported average pressure increases of 175 psi (1.2 megapascals). The energy available for explosive release if a failure occurs is VERY large, frankly the idea would terrify me even if it was a non toxic gas. I have seen a compressed air bottle fail and its not a pretty sight. A geological failure could release devastating amounts of energy from a large repository. The IDBP project planned to use 2 compressors powered by 600 kilowatt motors running for 3 YEARS. Most of that energy is now being contained in the repository. That represents a hell of a bang if something fails. A commercial repostory would have to be at least 100 times bigger for a single coal fired plant.
Moreover this gas has to be retained over mutidecadal time frames, the IDBP project would need to run for at least 20 years before they proved that could be achieved. I wouldnt mind betting that by Jan 2035 much of that gas has leaked away.
Its really a wanton criminal act I think. The monitoring will not be sustained and deteriorates/fails. I suppose their safety case says that the probability of failure is very low with a catastrophic outcome. What it means is that this contained reservoir most probably cannot be sealed off in the event of geological induced breach.
It hasn’t happened yet; ergo it cannot happen…Right?
Good point. But maybe their plan is to wait a while, then turn the pumps into generators, reverse the flow and generate electricity from venting the CO2. Sort of a gaseous pumped storage system. Geez these guys are smart! /sarc
My thoughts also. Remember our Senior Design Prof in college showing an Industrial size air tank explosion failure. A shrapnel bomb. Learned to only use water in any but the lowest pressure testing.
It’s a liquid, under pressure.
Yeah, 1800 psig at 68oF
I see a big beat down out behind the woodshed coming from the “Law of Unintended Consequences” because of this project.
Sensors and monitoring sounds good to the foolhardy promoters of such projects. But if and when it decides to “break free” (e.g., earthquake, or some other major instability), all the monitoring data in world will not help save the people.
Who paid for this dangerous boondoggle? Look in the mirror. . .?
/Mr Lynn
At least this isn’t as dangerous as the Keystone pipeline, LNG terminals or the melting of all sea ice and glaciers.
Sarc?
Actually its a LOT more dangerous given the actual facts
Pipeline leaks are easy to monitor – leaking oil is pretty obvious and effects tend to be local
LNG terminal accidents would be spectacular but limited in scope and tend to be well monitored unlike a CO2 dump
Melting sea Ice has no effect on sea level – it already displaces its own weight – see Archimedes
There is no increase in glacier melt rate. In fact the measured rate of sea level rise has not changed at all between 1900 and 2012 as the IPCC reported in WGIAR5 Chapter 13 Page 114
A rapid release of 10 million tons of CO2 in a geological disruption could be VERY nasty. Think earthquake, damaged communications, roads closed AND poisonous atmosphere.
They should fill it every summer (to fight warming) and release it every winter (to fight cooling).
Really, this seems much more dangerous that the Keystone XL pipeline! “Consequence of Failure” and such…
I suppose a sudden release might be impossible, and a gradual release would create a great cooling from depressurization, maybe freezing and plugging the leak. (?)
“I suppose a sudden release might be impossible, and a gradual release would create a great cooling from depressurization, maybe freezing and plugging the leak. (?)”
It would be a surprise to anyone who’s tried to control a blowout in a gas well. Sequestered CO2 is generally injected into saline water (even in an abandoned oil or gas reservoir, the produced hydrocarbon is naturally replaced with water, the pore spaces don’t remain empty). When injected under pressure the CO2 dissolves in the water. Pressure relief (in the event the fluid has migrated far enough upward) will allow the carbon dioxide to break out of solution as bubbles of gas. Think of it like a large underground bottle of Coke.
Did you ever crack open the cap on a shaken bottle of Coke (even a cold one), note the sudden appearance of many bubbles of gas which vigorously rush toward the opening (along with a heap of entrained cola) and then breath a sigh of relief when an an ice plug formed in the threads of the cap and plugged the ‘leak’?
…Didn’t think so.
Wiki says 1700 deaths, not 2500… Doesn’t change the story…
There were other once-living creatures other than people that also died – so w’ere talking more deaths than just a few thousand!