Scientists Target East Coast U.S. Rocks for Carbon Dioxide Storage
ScienceDaily (Jan. 5, 2010) — Scientists say buried volcanic rocks along the heavily populated coasts of New York, New Jersey and New England, as well as further south, might be ideal reservoirs to lock away carbon dioxide emitted by power plants and other industrial sources. A study this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences outlines formations on land as well as offshore, where scientists from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory say the best potential sites may lie.
Some basalt on land is already well known and highly visible. The vertical cliffs of the Palisades, along the west bank of the Hudson River near Manhattan, are pure basalt, and the rocks, formed some 200 million years ago, extend into the hills of central New Jersey. Similar masses are found in central Connecticut. Previous research by Lamont scientists and others shows that carbon dioxide injected into basalt undergoes natural chemical reactions that will eventually turn it into a solid mineral resembling limestone. If the process were made to work on a large scale, this would help obviate the danger of leaks.
The study’s authors, led by geophysicist David S. Goldberg, used existing research to outline more possible basalt underwater, including four areas of more than 1,000 square kilometers each, off northern New Jersey, Long Island and Massachusetts. A smaller patch appears to lie more or less under the beach of New Jersey’s Sandy Hook, peninsula, opposite New York’s harbor and not far from the proposed plant in Linden. The undersea formations are inferred from seismic and gravity measurements. “We would need to drill them to see where we’re at,” said Goldberg. “But we could potentially do deep burial here. The coast makes sense. That’s where people are. That’s where power plants are needed. And by going offshore, you can reduce risks.” Goldberg and his colleagues previously identified similar formations off the U.S. Northwest.
I thought basalt was a rather low or non-porous rock? How can you pump a few kilotons of CO2 / day into a low porosity hole that then forms an expanded volume carbonate plug in any pores?
Just seems like a chemical researcher trying to play engineer and failing.
What would I do with a nice stream of CO2 from a coal plant? Especially with entrained H2O? I’d feed it into a nuclear powered Fischer Tropsch process and turn it into Diesel and Gasoline. Might need to add some trash to soak up the excess O2 and turn it into fuel too. You get a “two fer” out of it. (About 70% of the total energy in the resultant Diesel and Gasoline comes from the Nuke. The rest comes from the carbon rich trash.)
FWIW, I did a quick “thought experiment” that says that 1% of the earth surface planted with fast growth species of plants (poplars, cottonwood, eucalyptus, etc.) or about 1/5 to 1/10 of that as algae ponds will suck all the existing CO2 out of the air in just a generation or so (50 years) down to the level where plants are starving. You want a CO2 sponge? Think Green (no, not that green, REAL green, plants). “4 Billion Years of Evolution Can’t Be Wrong!” 😉
1 % of the earth surface of algae ponds can “do the deed” in 5 years.
Algae only needs about 1/10 of solar intensity for full growth, so this can be a 10 layer structure of pond with passive ‘light pipes’ spreading the light through it (an established technology). That makes it 1/10 % of the earth’s surface ( or about 500 km by 1000 km. Something that would easily fit in, oh, some desert space next to the sea – for the water). Feed in sewage, light, and air. Take out Algae. 5 years, CO2 scrubbed. “Ta Dah!”
But we probably don’t want to suck it ALL out 8-}
What to do with all those megatons of Algae? Well… I wouldn’t bury it…
Fish food and fertilizer come to mind, but some algae is up to 50% oil, that can be run in a Diesel engine… but you could also make a high protein ruminant food out of algae. And the carbohydrate part can be fermented… See where I’m going with this?
Vodka Martini, Beef Steak, Baked Potato w/ sour cream & butter, Salad, green beans, garlic bread / Texas Toast, Caviar and Ceviche appetizer, and a nice Green bioDiesel Monster Truck to get you to the party 😉
Now doesn’t that sound much better than gloom and doom?
It’s an interesting thing to ‘work out’. Plants WILL suck atmospheric CO2 down to levels that are in the hard roll-off of their ability to remove it from the air in very short order. That is most likely what happened as the holocene let plants grow more widely. The result was our modern extraordinarily low (and hostile to plants starvation level) of CO2. And given half a chance, plants will suck it all back out AGAIN into their exponential growth suppression range in just a few years. Why fight nature? Let the plants have it, they know what to do with it…
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/of-trees-volcanos-and-pond-scum/
Don’t believe it? Then you do the numbers.
Hmm. Digging holes and filling them up again (with liquid CO2). Yup, just your typical government program.
I followed the link posted above to the article on the BBC re the deaths around the lakes in Africa. It says that scientists said the cause was CO2 coming from the lake bottom.
quote:
It was finally concluded that the lake’s lower levels had become saturated by carbon dioxide gas (CO2) due to gaseous springs which bubbled up from the extinct volcano beneath.
It is thought that recent high rainfall had displaced the CO2-rich water at the bottom, releasing a massive bubble of carbon dioxide gas from the lake in a natural phenomenon now referred to as “lake overturn”.
The heavy gas then sank to the ground and rolled in a cloud several tens of metres deep across the surrounding countryside.
Pipes have now been put in place in Lake Nyos and nearby Lake Monoun to siphon water from the lower layers up to the surface and allow the CO2 at the bottom of the lake to slowly bubble out, preventing a repeat of 1986 tragedy.
Is this really true or is it another scam to incriminate CO2?
REPLY: [ Lake story is true. Don’t know abou the “fix”. -mod]
The Man-Made Global warming Scam is all about stealing money from the American people.
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is one of the major reasons for promoting the fraud of man-made global warming. Billions of tax payer dollars are now being spent to make a select few filthy rich from this useless technology. Senator John D Rockefeller is the major player behind this scam.
“Rockefeller is a longtime champion of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. Earlier this year, he helped secure $3.4 billion for the Fossil Energy Research and Development programs, including CCS research, in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”
http://rockefeller.senate.gov/press/record.cfm?id=317677&
Anticlimactic (21:43:44),
Our former opposition leader (Malcolm Turnbull) proposed using buried charcoal ‘biochar’ as a carbon sink. It is reported to ha surface area of between 500 and 1500 sqM per gram, a figure that I find astonishing. It is reported here
It has a highly porous structure that provides a sanctuary for microflora and does not break down. Fireplace carbon is used in Archeology for carbon dating (good for 40kyrs).
Adding this to our soils not be a bad idea in Australia as we have a thin, friable soil structure.
Wow ! This group over at Climate Progress is bitter…
“Leif says:
January 8, 2010 at 12:39 am
mkurbo: With the international scientific community signed off on the subject and decent coming from vested interests of the status quo I am in fact accepting the hypothesis. Show me a peer review with one fact and you have my attention.
You might read that last sentence of yours again yourself.”
http://climateprogress.org/2009/12/31/science-the-hottest-decade-ends-maunder-mininum-solar-cycle-24-global-warming/#comment-249672
I’m with Craig, surely now CO2 is legally a pollutant, you can’t just bury it underground? What next, anthrax to be dumped at sea? What if it effected the ground water???? Heaven forbid, what if it escaped and the earths plant life became exposed to CO2?????
xyzlatin
There was a recent program on a Sky channel [UK] about this. Apparently one mysterious incident killed a handful of people. The scientist investigating this suggested it was release of CO2 from the bottom of a volcanic lake caused by a rock fall. This idea was totally dismissed by other scientists. A few years later a similar incident killed 2000 people. Investigating scientists, after contacting the first scientist, looked for, and found, a recent rock fall.
The interesting part for me was that the CO2 rolled down the sides of the volcano like a blanket and suffocated the people to death. CO2 is a very heavy molecule and will try and fall to the lowest level. I am just intrigued as to whether this affects the distribution of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Tucci (18:28:40) :
Pumping CO2 into greenhouses. Methinks your tongue was in your cheek.
Most of that valuable crop fertilised by CO2 will, over the decades to centuries, break down to produce CO2 again. So this is a transient approach, not a permanent one.
For the same reason, I steer well clear of schemes that reward investors in tree plantations. Unless plantations are maintained at high yield in perpetuity, they are also transient solutions and only delay the inevitable production of CO2.
Show me a reward scheme and I’ll show you a scammer.
Keith Minto
Off topic, I remember talking to some medical students who brewed their own hooch and decided to use charcoal to filter out the impurities – it also filtered out the alcohol!!
“For global warming protesters, the week was a total downer.
A University of Utah “scream-in” for the failed Copenhagen climate conference had to be iced, thanks to an errant December blizzard. Then faced with historic snowfalls in Europe, bicyclist Thaneite Khandekar cut short his global awareness trek. “There were times when my feet would be frozen,” a dejected Khandekar had to admit.
Meanwhile, newspapers in North America, Europe, and Asia warned readers of the deep freeze that lay ahead. In the United States, over 1,200 new records for cold and snow were set in a single week.”
Millions pray for global warming as cold spell grips the planet
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/roberts/100107
I’m trying to find where I saw two papers purporting that it takes 50% of a generators power to sequester the carbon.
I may have seen these at John dalys site or the SPPI site of Monckton
Am at work at mo so this is best I can do for now
Keith Minto and Photon without a higgs:
Weather underground gives a high temperature of 54 degrees for 5 Jan at the Roswell airport. ??? I think Weather Underground shows a record high of 80 degrees on that date in 1994. Which source is right?
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KROW/2010/1/5/DailyHistory.html
We’re not suffering any heat waves here in Albuquerque.
Jeff L (19:58:45) : “My guess is that you would quickly reduce your perm with the creation of limestone to the point where you couldn’t inject any more CO2, rendering the concept & project useless.”
Spoilsport!
Before we are even able to store the Coca Cola bubbles generated by our power plants underground, we will have to spend approx. 15-20% of the power generated by said power plant on capturing the stuff from the flue gases.
Basically that means burning 15-20%
more fossil fuels in order to create the same nett power output as without carbon capture.
I thought we were running out of fossil fuels and have to preserve them. This CCS is beyond stupid.
In the UK the fashionable idea for carbon dioxide storage is in the depleted North Sea Oil fields. (At least they might get some more oil out). They would have to lay new pipelines as they are talking about pumping at 150bar pressure – or 2,175psi. So it will get exciting if they get a leaky joint).
If they fill every little bit of the available capacity, based on the IPCC’s own ‘scenarios’ of temperature rise, they will avoid a steamy temperature rise of 0.003ºC.
There is only one sensible place to pump CO2. Round up the greenie fraudsters and pump the gas where the sun don’t shine.
If it can be proved that we absolutaly must capture carbon. Why not convert it to Methanol instead?…
http://inventorspot.com/articles/singapore_discovers_how_turn_carbon_dioxide_methanol_26716
Important Safety Tip: Avoid Pits!
This is something to especially take note of in any type of industrial building. As the story goes, you can have two guys going down into a pit, the lower one suddenly falls off the ladder. So the other guy goes right down after him to help. Later, someone comes by, sees two guys at the bottom of the pit, quickly races for the ladder to help them…
Invisible gases do build up. If you see someone collapsed in a pit, LEAVE THEM. If there is a gas buildup, good chance they are already dead. Go get professional help, people with the proper breathing apparatus. And I don’t care who is in trouble, holding your breath and going down there quick is not an option.
I can well believe those volcanic lake stories. Similar to them is well known to be a hazard in regular industry, as well as mining. Now I’m sure OSHA has a ton of regulations on the books for pits these days, with requirements for forced ventilation. Which works until the power goes out, or the unmonitored fan stops working… Ammonia is still in use as a refrigerant as well, and plants that use it (ice cream makers, cold storage plants, etc) have been known to leak it when the power goes out. Be careful!
This is something which makes me believe this particular carbon sequestering scheme will never be implemented. What assurances are there the CO2 will not migrate elsewhere? Are there mines around there? What about underground caves? Do they know with certainty where cavers may go on their explorations? When there are “special” ones only a few may know about? What happens when they go to one they’ve been to dozens of times and know the air is good in there, but suddenly it’s not… Yup, that’ll be an expensive lawsuit.
CO2 sequestration would be on par with attempting to build a perpetual motion machine. You haven’t really solved anything, you’ve just kicked the can down the road a bit. What goes in will eventually come out.
I think the AGW crowd will change it’s tune somewhere around June, July, and August this year. That’s when they will notice food shortage in the US. The Department of Agriculture says we have enough supply to last us till August this year. That’s two months short. And you know what the kicker is? We have no supplies in reserve. But that’s not the best part. The best part is, food prices will probably double and triple by then. That’s when you will see the AGW crowd change it’s tune. Don’t ask me where I got this.
As a South African, it was interesting to observe that the Copenhagen agreement/non-agreement was finally hammered out between the States, China and South Africa – interesting because we (South Africa) were boxing way, way above our weight division. So why were we included? Here is my theory – as we all know South Africa already has some pretty deep and extensive holes dug, getting all that gold out, so it’s a perfect place to pump all that horrible CO2 into. The tankers offload the oil in the States, Europe etc; fill up with CO2 and on the way back to the gulf, stop over on the SA east coast, pump it out and up to the Reef where its stored a couple of km underground. Everybody wins, the tankers have a load both ways, the eco-“worriers” in the States and Europe are happy the stuff isn’t in their backyard, the gold miners here get paid both ways – gold out – CO2 in, it’s beautiful. Naturally, CO2 now becomes a commodity, to be traded like any other. Of course the “consumer” will have to pay for all of this, but hey nothings free – right. How prophetic of Pink Floyd – “Money – it’s a gas”.
It is all total lunacy. All this expense on an unproven hypothesis, that even by IPCC calculations would only make a difference of about 0.1C in 100 years.
I’ll say it again. Lunacy.
OK I found the paper.
For those needing more info on sequestration and it’s costs etc try here http://www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org/other/rational_look.html
A paper by By Kimball Rasmussen | President and CEO, Deseret Power
[just waaaaayyyy too off topic. ~ ctm]
CO2? Just pump the stuff into the air. There’s more than enough room for it there and it’s not doing any harm whatsoever. In fact, it’s doing a lot of good.
Why is it that the very people who are screaming about us harming the environment by our actions are the very same people who want to deliberately ‘geo-engineer’ ‘solutions’ to non-existent problems?
I agree with Dave (01:35:47): It is utter lunacy.