From the “MTBE is perfectly safe department” and Duke University:
Leaking underground CO2 storage could contaminate drinking water
DURHAM, N.C. — Leaks from carbon dioxide injected deep underground to help fight climate change could bubble up into drinking water aquifers near the surface, driving up levels of contaminants in the water tenfold or more in some places, according to a study by Duke University scientists.
Based on a year-long analysis of core samples from four drinking water aquifers, “We found the potential for contamination is real, but there are ways to avoid or reduce the risk,” says Robert B. Jackson, Nicholas Professor of Global Environmental Change and professor of biology at Duke.
“Geologic criteria that we identified in the study can help identify locations around the country that should be monitored or avoided,” he says. “By no means would all sites be susceptible to problems of water quality.”
The study appears in the online edition of the journal Environmental Science & Technology, at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es102235w.
Storing carbon dioxide deep below Earth’s surface, a process known as geosequestration, is part of a suite of new carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies being developed by governments and industries worldwide to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions entering Earth’s atmosphere. The still-evolving technologies are designed to capture and compress CO2, emissions at their source – typically power plants and other industrial facilities – and transport the CO2 to locations where it can be injected far below the Earth’s surface for long-term storage. The U.S. Department of Energy, working with industry and academia, has begun the planning for at least seven regional CCS projects.
“The fear of drinking water contamination from CO2 leaks is one of several sticking points about CCS and has contributed to local opposition to it,” says Jackson, who directs Duke’s Center on Global Change. “We examined the idea that if CO2 leaked out slowly from deep formations, where might it negatively impact freshwater aquifers near the surface, and why.”
Jackson and his postdoctoral fellow Mark G. Little collected core samples from four freshwater aquifers around the nation that overlie potential CCS sites and incubated the samples in their lab at Duke for a year, with CO2 bubbling through them.
After a year’s exposure to the CO2, analysis of the samples showed that “there are a number of potential sites where CO2 leaks drive contaminants up tenfold or more, in some cases to levels above the maximum contaminant loads set by the EPA for potable water,” Jackson says. Three key factors – solid-phase metal mobility, carbonate buffering capacity and electron exchanges in the overlying freshwater aquifer – were found to influence the risk of drinking water contamination from underground carbon leaks.
The study also identified four markers that scientists can use to test for early warnings of potential carbon dioxide leaks. “Along with changes in carbonate concentration and acidity of the water, concentrations of manganese, iron and calcium could all be used as geochemical markers of a leak, as their concentration increase within two weeks of exposure to CO2,” Jackson says.
Hmmm. Aqua Minerale Con Gasse.
Isn’t the “capped with impermible geologic structure” the potential flaw in the frack’ing process used in natural gas drilling?
The other question is, suppose it doesn’t stay trapped but on the way up breaks down to CO (carbon monoxide) in a populated area? CO is highly flammable!!! Ok, got to consider the source – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_monoxide
but they state it was a vehicle fuel…
Either way, there is much planning left to be done before it is discovered the only action which has occurred is the planning itself…
The residents living over these ticking time bombs will be fortunate if all they see is ground water contamination. Continuous pumping of high pressure gas into the earth is too much like pumping air into a balloon. After twenty years there will be tremors, and then an earthquake and then a massive release of adiabatically cooled CO2 that will hug the ground. The 1986 Lake Nyos disaster again with mammals dead up to 25 km away.
It this just has to be tried, I suggest 38.89°N, 77.04°W would be a nice river valley location. I’m sure it would be perfectly safe there. At least there will not be any fires after the earthquake.
So, what little we know about CO2 effects upon the atmosphere, we are now going to introduce into the less understood?, geology containing our crop and drinking water.
What could possibly go wrong.
Also see:
Hydraulic fracturing
Engchamp says:
November 11, 2010 at 3:41 pm
“Will someone (who knows) please tell me how carbon dioxide can contaminate water, and thus make it impotable?
At present, I am of the opinion that this is yet more BS put before we ‘sceptics’ in order to attempt the impossible, i.e. to dissuade us from thinking logically and reasonably.”
Jurag V answered above- lowered PH due to increased carbonic acid can lead to more absorbtion of heavy metals and other contaminants. As with almost everything else presented in the media; the risk is almost surely overblown, so I don’t put too much stock in it. But, there does appear to be some basis in actual science, not that I’m qualified in any way to assess it as such.
Geeeeez….. you can do Post Doc’s on analysing the effect of carbonic acid and bicarbonate on rocks these days. It used to be done in school labs. Standards are certainly different to the bad ol’ days
Greenies are very afraid of fracking. The pressures we see in sequestration are high and will cause fractures.
There is no such thing as impermeable formations.
And what if there were ever a big leak – how many people could be killed, as in those African killer valleys?
I find it difficult to believe that carbon capture and sequestration is taken seriously. Just look at the thermodynamics of the situation to realize that somewhere between 30% and 50% of a power plants entire energy output would be used solely to collect, compress, liquify, and inject the carbon dioxide. Has globalwarming fanaticism really drivin us to the point where we would seriously consider burning thru our energy reserves at an accelerated rate just to generate the extra energy to capture one of the primary combustion products? I see carbon capture as an obvious non-starter.
CCS is a stupid idea. The DOE should be focusing on viable solutions to power generation not absurd ideas like CCS.
What is the point of expending energy to sequester CO2?
However, water management is going to be an issue with population growth. Desalination will also be a big issue for certain countries.
World Ground Water Map
http://www.whymap.org/cln_145/nn_1055978/whymap/EN/Downloads/Global__maps/whymap__125__statistics__pdf,templateId=raw,property=publicationFile.pdf/whymap_125_statistics_pdf.pdf
Ian E says on November 11, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Surely that is an advantage of the scheme in the minds of those promoting it?
Pingo, Gavin Liddiard, BS Footprint, Engchamp, etc,
If you had have read the post before scrolling down to comment you would have seen that it’s not the CO2 itself that contaminates but other stuff that it encourages. Allow me to reiterate the key sentence:
It’s disappointing that you read a headline and scroll down to comment without reading the post. Why is that? Do you just like to read your own comments? This does not lead to good discussion on WUWT.
Oddly enough, CO2 is often found when drilling for natural gas. It can be and is frequently re-injected to force oil and gas to other wells. All this happens well below any aquifers and generally is separated by a mile or two of impermeable rock.
In any case, CO2 should be vented to the atmosphere since it is proven to accelerate plant growth. After all the climate is cooling and in a hungry world, who but a monster would take food from the hungry masses?
The U.S. Department of Energy, working with industry and academia, has begun the planning for at least seven regional CCS projects.
They’re all out of their minds, but still getting paid. Ecological Overshoot strikes again.
One key aspect of CO2 storage that has been largely ignored to date, we are told, is the issue of injection rate into the subsurface. A typical 1GW coal-fired power plant produces 20,000 tons of CO2 per day, which must be injected into an aquifer at this daily rate for decades.
–EUREFRENDUM
How many years would it take one coal plant to raise CO2 by 1 point?
This, like windmills, will be abandoned after all the subsidies, grants and whatever else can be sucked from govts and taxpayers, are gone. This has to be the case because no sane person would see this as necessary and workable, since it would take vast areas to store and costs are astronomical. No industry would go along with this if not for govt. money.
Isn’t CCS somehow connected to cap and trade? What happens with the death of C&T?
How about the problem of actually capturing it? As I understand, they are presently only able to capture a small percentage.
These are the same morans that run around complaining about second hand smoke, then fall all over themselves to approve the next medical marijuana shop. Now listen up and listen up good. The promotion of CO2 as the main cause of AGW was exposed in the climategate emails as a complete fraud. The socialist frauds that inhabit the MSM, academia and government still clinging to the belief due so out of a financial/political basis not on any scientific facts.
CO2 is poisonous to living creatures only when concentrated. [See Lake Nyos event]. Like the pinheads propose (actually, they don’t want to really do it, just get grant money to study it ad infinitum). It is absurd to sequester CO2 anyway. We need more CO2 in the atmosphere.
Grief!
Hey, can Greenpiece provide a list of proscribed molecules and atoms? It seems to me that enviromenmtalists (sic) are at war with chemistry and the periodic table.
We’re talking here about a molecule comprised of the third and fourth most common elements in the universe.
Pretty tough to pack enough of that kind of substance away to make much of a difference.
But the best underground location would be the one noted above (38.89°N, 77.04°W).
If any leaks out, the amount of hot air in the immediate vicinity will help it rise harmlessly into the atmosphere and be dispersed.
OT
We have an embassy in Iraq bigger that Vatican City.
WUWT?
Can I get a grand video tour of that place?
Guinness Stout all over the puter screen!
Generally speaking, geoengineering convinces me that the human race has gone completely insane.
As much as many on this blog would like to demonize anything that might be supported by pro-AGW folks, getting worked up about CO2 sequestration is a waste of time. We in the oil industry have been injecting CO2 into rocks for decades to enhance oil recovery – with no problems at all. The researchers of this article need to do their homework & consultant with some petroleum engineers. All the technology & how to apply it has already been worked out. These researchers act as if they are inventing the wheel, but in reality, they are re-inventing the wheel.
The fact of the matter is if we injected the CO2 into oil bearing reservoirs, we could increase our oil reserves & productivity in many, many fields – so we could actually get some economic benefit of it, if done properly.
So, before you bash CO2 sequestration, do your homework. It isn’t an inherently flawed idea & should be judged independently of the AGW hypothesis.
If they really want to sequester CO2 then the best way would be to dissolve it in the oceans. The slight reduction in alkalinity promotes growth in calcium carbonate producing creatures, removing CO2 safely and cheaply for millions of years!
From a Matt Ridley essay on ‘Ocean Acidification’ :
‘A new paper from scientists in North Carolina proves what many scientists have long suspected, namely that corals and other species do not use carbonate as raw material to make their shells; they use bicarbonate. And dissolving carbon dioxide in water actually increases bicarbonate concentrations.
This may explain why study after study keeps finding that far from depressing growth rates of marine organisms, high but realistic levels of carbon dioxide either do not affect them or increase them. By far the most important calcifiers in the oceans are plankton called coccolithophores, which account for about a third of the total marine calcium carbonate manufacture. There is now strong evidence that coccolithophores are growing faster and larger as a result of human carbon dioxide emissions. Stands to reason if they use bicarbonate.’
Original article :
http://www.thegwpf.org/best-of-blogs/1803-matt-ridley-acid-oceans-and-acid-rain.html
Henry chance said: “There is no such thing as impermeable formations.”
That’s simply not true. Salt formations and shales of suitable thickness are impermeable, among others. Most of the proposed sequestration sites are former oil and gas fields. They are, by definition, trapped under impermeable formations. Many were previously at extremely high pressure. No instance of potable water being naturally contaminated by natural gas comes to mind. Nor does an instance of CO2 injection as a secondary recovery technique.
The frac issues I know about are always related to injections of hydraulic fluids (not CO2) in shallow oil or gas formations that are permeable, but not sufficiently so that they can be economically produced. No are they very high pressure because high pressures cost money. Their real purpose is to open small cracks so the included propants can keep the cracks open. Potable water is also shallow. Don’t do that.
But it does seem to me that these two researchers could have spent an hour in the geology and petroleum engineering departments and saved themselves a lot of trouble. The sheer volume of CO2 that they want to sequester makes the idea ridiculous.