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.
An insanely expensive idea for a non-existent problem.
The money could be spent solving real environmental problems.
What a scam.
Slightly off topic, but still a great example of government squandering of capital is in Houston.
The past mayor organized a great deal of money to build a tiny park in downtown Houston, called ‘Discovery Green’.
It is almost a theme park more than a park. Movies, concerts, plays, ice skating (!), etc. etc. etc.
The price tag? $125 million.
The problems?
1) it is very difficult to get to. It is in the middle of downtown. It is not even the extremely limited train line Houston has (That almost no one rides)
2) It is tiny. It is only a few acres
3) and most importantly, the $125 million spent on Discovery Green cannot be spent to mitigate a real problem Houston has – too few green spaces.
$125 million could have bought significant amounts of land, taken that land out of commercial or residential use, and turned it into green space that people oculd actually discover.
Instead, we have a venue, managed by a lucrative *50 year* contract given to insiders, for a space that in effect offers entertainment for the well to do who live in downtown, or those who can easily drive in to downtown and pay for parking.
http://www.discoverygreen.com/management/
Capital that could have significantly improved the environment of Houston, improved the park and green space access to regular Houstonians, was instead spent on a tiny piece of prime commercial real estate that can in reality serve almost no one.
These same people are backing cap-n-trade, tax subsidized windmills, CO2 regulation, etc. etc.
And our now ex-Mayor, who brags about this project, and the other millions he wasted on pointless solar energy demonstrations, wants to bring his brand of leadership to the Senate.
I would suggest that the boon doggle of geo-CO2 sequestration is simply a huge scale example of what the City of Houston has done with its Discovery Green:
Create a new way to do very little for very few with a huge price to everyone.
Our ‘rulers’ are supposed to be cleverer that us mere mortals! They are complete idiots, money grabbing idiots, lying idiots and most importantly to say, self-serving idiots.
I thought this crap about co2 was just about finished? It seems that vested interests are still trying to get government money on the back of that evil poison co2.
I need to lie down….
jaymam (02:59:27)
Total human CO2 emissions 5.5 GT C per year- 8.6 GT.
The atmosphere contains 780 Gt C; the surface ocean contains 1,000 Gt C; vegetation, soils, and detritus around 2,000 Gt C; and the intermediate and deep oceans contain 38,000 Gt C, as CO2 or CO2 hydration products. Each year, the surface ocean and atmosphere exchange an estimated 90 Gt C; vegetation and the atmosphere, 100 Gt C; marine biota and the surface ocean, 50 Gt C; and the surface ocean and the intermediate and deep oceans, 40 Gt C. We don’t know how much anthropogenic c is in the atmosphere. Its probably no more than 3% as co2 exchanges a lot and these sums of exchange mean regulation -not accumulation.. In truth, we don’t know all the natural sources of co2 such as the sum total of earth crust seam outlets, geysers, fumaroles underwater volcanoes etc
“Wade (05:18:24) :
[…]
The one lesson I learned in life is people are idiots.”
Yes, and the important thing is to assess the amount of idiocy right. According to Sturgeon it’s about 90 to 95 percent of the population. In all these Carbon sequestering projects it is seldom mentioned that the product they want to pump into some hole is at the moment a valuable industry gas.
You can buy it for 6 EUR a kg. So i guess the price comes down a little when you buy in bulk, say 3000 EUR a ton. They wouldn’t even have to install filters at powerplant, they can just buy all the CO2 they want to sequester on the free market at a price of 3000 EUR or 4400 USD per metric ton.
The emissions permit in the EU’s Cap and trade program costs about 10EUR ATM. So at the moment it’s 300 times cheaper to just pump it into the air.
This discrepancy has to be eliminated by better technology or subsidies to make the thing viable.
Here’s a great way to make toast.
Apparatus:
1x slice of bread
1 x long metal fork
1 x 2 litre (minimum)bottle of the soft drink of your choice
1 x cylinder of CO2 (optional)
Instructions:
Empty drinks bottle.
Make sure that bottle contains at least 350 ppm of CO2. This shouldn’t be a problem unless you’re in the vicinity of evil, pollutant hungry plants. Use gas bottle if necessary.
Screw top on tightly.
Place bread on toasting fork and hold it 6-12 inches from bottle.
Stop and turn bread when done to your liking.
Theory. See the Second Law of Toasto-Dynamics
What a colossal waste of energy.
I have to question the validity of the assumption of adequate pore space available in igneous formations. True, there are always porous layers involved in the mix, but igneous rock is notoriously chaotic in its structure. It’s hard enough to delineate storage capacity on-shore where (fairly expensive) test bore holes can be drilled. Offshore, however, the cost rises exponentially (as does the uncertainty involved in formation extents). This just sounds like an academic pipe dream to me. I should know. As a geologist, I’ve seen more than my fair share of projects set up to soak up funding which have almost absolutely no “real world” value.
While I was in graduate school, I subcontracted work for the U.S. Dept. of Energy concerning carbon sequestration in unminable coal seams (so I have at least a fairly good grasp of the jist of this article). The key with sequestration in coal is that the coal will preferentially bond with carbon dioxide over methane (thereby providing a potentially useful, and lucrative, by-product of the sequestration). In this setting, the flushed methane can be captured and put to use to offset the extreme costs involved in sequestration. The downside, of course, is that it only takes one significant fracture to unleash a nightmarish amount of high-pressured CO2 (which is deadly in such high concentrations) into the surrounding environment.
Sorry to be long-winded, but I just can’t see this going anywhere beyond the usual frittering-away of grant money.
“Carbon Dioxide Storage in East Coast U.S. Rocks”
Heh, I thought you were saying that East Coast CO2 storage is awesome :).
Basalt? they want to use basalt? In NE Oregon we have Basalt, bring your power plant here.We need the money.Build ’em where old sawmills were, put the smokestacks
down a hole-anywhere.
Apart of the whole CO2 issue being simply a stupid waste of money, created by those who gain advantages out of it, the CO2 storage is a tricky thing in itself, as sequestration is quite complicated and energy intensive, today (hopefully I am wrong) noone has a technique at hand to avoid CO2 escaping in neighboring areas underground. CO2 is proven to be poison, not for the climate, not for the temperatures on this planet, but for humans who live in a sink like valleys, or mine workers etc.
CO2 as a gas is, if ever escaping the reservoirs and coming back up, for its weight replacing the normal air in a valley, for this effect known to be a silent killer. Has a long history in mining (for example german salt mining), where geologic events pressed CO2 in certain layers of the mine.
Better to see it as an enormous waste of money, better to see it as big governments play the public, but this is crazy, as long it is not 100% safe.
As a student in geology, the classes I had on microscopy dealt extensively with examination of igneous and metamorphic rocks and generally they are not porous. Fluids don’t flow through them and there is little pore space in which to store gasses or fluids. They are also very impermeable.
If you want a good every-day example of this, study how successful water well drilling is in granite (igneous), or shist and slate (both metamorphic). Well drillers hate these types of formations because they hold precious little water and the wells they drill demonstrate precious little recharge. Their only hope is to encounter some sort of structural boundary, such as a brecciated fault zone along which water can accumulate and flow.
Where I live on the Snake River Plain in Idaho, our water wells are very productive even though they’re drilled in basalt. Well, to be more precise, the wells go through layer after layer of basalt/sediment (sand, gravel, etc.)/ basalt again, for thousands of feet. And because basalt is rather porous since it is an extrusive volcanic rock (formed on the surface) and upon cooling generally forms columns (hence “columnar basalt”), it has significant pore space and permeability. But what is considered a benefit is also a drawback.
Consider the Teton Dam failure, which was caused primarily because the grouting of the large joints in the rock on the north side of the reservoir was not completed due to lack of funds. Once full, plenty of reservoir water seeped into that side of the canyon, traveled downstream toward the dam through joints and fractures, saturated some of the dam material enough to cause partial failure, and the water in the reservoir washed out the rest. 11 lives were lost.
Can you imagine pumping CO2 into such a formation? How would you keep it there? Targeting porous, permeable formations is fine if you can guarantee containment, but one big leak or belch and you’re looking at $billions or $trillions in lawsuits. Who will underwrite these ventures?
Find a porous, permeable stratigraphic unit burried by impermeable rock units above it and that’s a better configuration, but all it would take is an earthquake to fracture the overlying “lid”, release all that gas, and have a disaster on our hands. And there are other ways of puncturing the “lid” too, such as somebody drilling an oil, gas, or water well through it. You’d end up with a gusher not of black oil, but of CO2 gas.
If they won’t let us store radioactive waste underground, why should we consider storing something that is potentially as deadly?
Ah, of course… the same people that are bringing you polar bears falling from the sky and Cap and Trade schemes.
Those people… (They figure as long as they can make things more expensive, everything will right itself. Fat chance.)
When logic is lost regarding the impact that CO2 has on the environment in the first place, it can’t be expected to show up later on dealing with any other aspects of it either.
That was a post deleted from Climate Progress. He posted a rant about record CO2 and someone posted that it was higher in 1942 It had to be deleted. Over dose of facts and truth.
Hide the decline of CO2.
All this after you agree:
1.Believing in Al Gore´s Green Religion.
2.Accept being taxed by Cap&Trade.
3.Buying carbon shares to pay for your carbon sins.
4.Declaring under oath that individual freedom it is also a sin.
5.Not to drink anymore those sinful carbonated beverages.
6.Buy and drink, everyday, uncarbonated, and “soma” (*) formulated, “Kool-Aid”
(*)Eternal happiness additive provided by government
7.To obey all dictates and mandates issued by your holy and eternal progressive government.
“I get it, these areas get billons for the storage of CO2”
No. My relatives have an underground natural gas storage field. It is many miles across. Maybe 40 square miles reaching under neighbors land. The gas companies paid damage settlements to lay pipe and road space. They do not get rich from the energy.
The land has a handfull of gas monitoring wells also. There is not much leakage and some of that is lateral and not vertical. It leaks along the lines of the rock.
In the Anadarko basin, there are thousands of gas wells and a handfull of cross country pipelines. The storage fields retain gas and it is brought into the system during peak demands.
Leaking is not a problem.
It would cost millions to build CO2 pumping station and system. (plus millions for injection wells)
It would cost a lot of money and energy to run high pressure pumps.
No one mentions this. There have been experiments where CO2 was injection into irrigation water and it also improved crop growth.
We are dealing with fear and non agriculture minds. They don’t know it but we can scare them regarding the 70% nitrogen that is in our atmosphere. It can kill(divers bends)
It is poison. Put 100% nitrogen on plants and they “burn” up.
Sorry, this is a bookmark, does anyone have ideas on how to do it without commenting (I sometimes send myself an email with the link and a bit copied from the last comment but it gets cumbersome)?
Thanks for getting more info on my great plan to save the planet by increasing tomato plant yields and giving the homeless a warm place to sleep at night, an idea that seems eminently more sensible than what the experts are all up to
Minor correction, CO2 is not a “poison” it is an asphyxiant, it is heavier than air, and pools in low spots. In very high concentrations it also upsets the respiratory regulation system due to changes in partial pressure of CO2 in the blood.
By very high levels I mean well in excess of normal atmospheric concentrations.
From CO2 MSDS sheets we find guide lines as follows:
Source: http://www.airgas.com/documents/pdf/001013.pdf
ACGIH TLV (United States, 1/2008).
STEL: 54000 mg/m³ 15 minute(s).
STEL: 30000 ppm 15 minute(s).
TWA: 9000 mg/m³ 8 hour(s).
TWA: 5000 ppm 8 hour(s).
NIOSH REL (United States, 6/2008).
STEL: 54000 mg/m³ 15 minute(s).
STEL: 30000 ppm 15 minute(s).
TWA: 9000 mg/m³ 10 hour(s).
TWA: 5000 ppm 10 hour(s).
OSHA PEL (United States, 11/2006).
TWA: 9000 mg/m³ 8 hour(s).
TWA: 5000 ppm 8 hour(s).
OSHA PEL 1989 (United States, 3/1989).
STEL: 54000 mg/m³ 15 minute(s).
STEL: 30000 ppm 15 minute(s).
TWA: 18000 mg/m³ 8 hour(s).
TWA: 10000 ppm 8 hour(s).
In western Colorado they have some CO2 wells that the withdraw CO2 from geological formations, and sell it as a commercial gas. They have to have emergency plans in place in case there is a major pipe line rupture in the system as it could release enough CO2 in a short period of time to cause asphyxiation in low lying areas. The same would apply to any injection system, you would need, monitoring systems (wind direction and speed, along with local CO2 concentrations) along with evacuation plans, and warning systems near the sequestration plants.
Larry
Thanks, Anthony, for your frequent gift of “boiling blood” in the top-of-the-morning read. Yes, I truly believe that the pseudo-scientists, the pseudo-engineers, the university departments (or government-funded “special projects” outside of normal academic control), the politicians in power pushing (corrupt) coffer-filling fantasies, the political parties engaged in support for such projects — all are monstrous; all are trying to become immortal through power and greed.
Well, we all know what happened to Icarus. When Minos (Pachuri, Gore, Rockefeller, Soros, backers of BHO, global financiers, etc., Democrats, Republicans) wanted to retain his kingdom and power forever, he planned to permanenty imprison his son (descendants). He hired a learned person/scientist/engineer to trap that son forever (AGW scam). Unfortunately, once the plan worked, Minos also imprisoned the learned person and his son (descendants) — trapped forever (“the ice is melting-we’re burning up science”). But learned person/pseudo-scientist/pseodo-engineer invented a way to escape. Through his amazing mind he developed a way to safety (stop productivity/sequester CO2) for himself and his descendants. Unfortunately, the son (descendants) knew no science and, therefore, improperly used that invention and fell into the sea to his doom.
The fun part is that the myth includes labyrinth Earth (“how many unknowns/the science is not settled”), the Sun (“this has not happened before in 100 years!”), and the Oceans/Sea (“the heat is in the ocean pipeline…somewhere”).
Michael (01:01:47) warns us that if the harvests go bad for weather reasons this year, we only have enough supply to last until August 2010 — the U.S. helps to feed the world. (I remember having difficulty getting pumpkin last year because so many of the fields had to be plowed under — rot from unseasonable rains, I think.) These are “human-controlled” plants. With a twist on E.M. Smith (21:54:32), we also might want to worry about the non-human-controlled plants. “Plants WILL suck atmospheric CO2 down to….our modern extraordinarily low level of CO2.” Trying to control CO2 might be exactly the opposite path to take to keep ourselves/Earth healthy and warm enough. Oh, well, so much for our descendants.
I want accountability for the monsters — fines (put the damn money back), and jail time.
I can’t believe they are still working on this. Zombie Science.
kadaka (19:02:35):
Here’s some links that might interest you (you can search for many more).
http://blog.valcent.net/?tag=vertical-algae-technology
http://algaetobioenergy.wordpress.com/
http://verticalfarmblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/verttical-algae-bio-reactor.html
I’ve liked this technology since I heard of it a couple of years ago and think it has great potential. No, it won’t replace fossil fuels but it can be a great way to re-utilize exhasut CO2 from coal/oil/NG energy plants and produces several products. It’s pretty dense compared to other bio-fuels and should replace food crops eventually. Algae comes in all kinds of flavors which allows directed manufacturing to fill special markets. It’s one of those technologies that appears useful whether you are a skeptic or believer in strong AGW.
Galen Haugh (07:46:18) : I used to live in Idaho , and still have a second home there and have alwayh been curious about the aquifer under the Snake River Plain . What constitutes the impermeable layer beneath the columnal basalt that retains the water and allows it to flow into the Snake around Hagerman ? I understand what makes the Little and Big Lost Rivers , along with Birch Creek , sink , But why doesn’t the Little Wood ? Is it a difference in the basalt flows in that area ? Age ? These are probably simplistic questions , but I have wondered about this for many years .
Never thought the day would come where some people would actually buy into “selling air for profit” …
Orwellian novels (more like predictions) couldn’t have predicted this… or did they :).
Creating ‘money’ out of thin air was the FEDS job, now, it seems, they’ve branched out.
AGW is a precursor to Agenda 21, and is SELLING AIR
I once had a 32 lb. CO2 fire extinguisher bottle go off on me while I was sitting in the driver’s compartment of an M60A1 tank. My fellow mechanics where standing outside laughing at me as I tried to crawl through the 6 inch gap between the hatch and the turret. Trust me, you can inhale CO2 all you want, but it is distinctly unsatisfying.
Don’t try this at home.
Tucci (18:28:40) :
“Why bother?
If carbon dioxide can be captured at all, why pump it underground when it can be piped into greenhouses to be taken up by photosynthetic plants, simultaneously sequestering this “toxic” gas and producing yields of botanical products?
I suggest Cannabis sativa grown densely in such greenhouses…”
That is the best idea I have ever heard from this whole idiotic mess. Of Course the big ten food companies would squash it unless you can sell it to them.
If these mitigation efforts fail and climate continues to change, I expect a refund.
E.M.Smith (21:54:32) :
“….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?…”
Chief, I have 100 ac sitting on a big river in NC, it even has a big pond/swamp. Want to go into business with me sequestering CO2 or making money off grants???
If you can’t beat them join them at the public trough…