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.
Thanks for your informative and interesting post. I’m pretty happy to leave the identification of compatible host reservoirs for CCS to the geological experts. I also have pointed out that many equally worrisome risks already occur with respect to natural gas production. However, I am disturbed by the prospect of destroying so much availability of fuel and effectively burying it. CCS is thermodynamic madness, particularly if one sees the risks of a doubling of CO2 as pretty small anyway.
Yes, I totally agree on the “thermodynamic madness” of CCS. We are wasting at least 30% of the energy for no discernible good. Another way to look at it, is we are increasing the cost nearly 50% to get the same useful energy.
Madness. Let plants do the sequestration.
The best p.lace to store CO2 is in the atmosphere where it can do no harm and will benefit the plants who need to get at it all the time.
Maybe they’ve finally found a way to really make CO2 into ‘pollution’
http://junkscience.com/2015/01/14/carbon-sequestration-project-meets-milestone/#more-67283
I would interpret the consumption to be 2400 MWH per day, correct?
What percentage is that of the plant’s total consumption?
Is tax money going to pay the difference?
100 MW is the amount of power used by approx. 1000 avg. homes. (to add perspective)
http://www.answers.com/Q/How_many_homes_can_a_megawatt_power
Wow, and we get called alarmist…
No, an alarmist would have used models to project (not predict) how many millions of people would die by mass suffocation by 2100.
And the headline would be something like: “Carbon Sequestration, the New Holocaust”.
That’s how the alarmists roll.
BTW if CO2 is now a pollutant, how can a company get away with pumping a million tons of it into the ground? Is this not now a hazardous, toxic superfund site?
No, alarmist, not an alarmist.
“1 million tons of pressurised CO2…” is alarmist anyway, since Eric fails to mention that there are billions of tons of pressurised water already down there. Image if that were to escape and drown everyone?
Kit Carruthers January 14, 2015 at 2:15 pm
No, alarmist, not an alarmist.
“1 million tons of pressurised CO2…” is alarmist anyway, since Eric fails to mention that there are billions of tons of pressurised water already down there. Image if that were to escape and drown everyone?
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You missed my second point. Water is not a pollutant, CO2 officially (and ridiculously) is. Nothing could be more alarmist and misleading than declaring CO2 a pollutant and the purposely called it “carbon” instead.
What the author did was mild by comparison.
Do you attack the green alarmists with such rigor? Why is that any different?
The larger point is that, whether it is risky or not is irrelevant. Either way, it is costly exercise in futility.
Why is it ridiculous that CO2 is classed as a pollutant?
To answer your second point, lots of hazardous substances get routinely disposed of in the ground every day through landfill. These are (or should be) carefully designed to manage risk of leakage, monitored, and subject to extensive regulation. CO2 storage is the same.
OK. SO the single small-scale 1,000,000 ton CO2 pressurized gas reservoir underground is “monitored” against “all (of the cases) that we can think of” predicted.
Fine.
Now. Tomorrow night, on a still, sub-freezing winter night with no wind and no clouds at 3:00 AM, the monitors go off. The CO2 is venting – 50,000 tons per day.
How are you going to stop it? How are you going to get even CLOSE TO the vent point to find out what is happening so you can start to figure out where the leak is even from?
WHO will even hear the monitors? Where is the monitor station? What is its backup power?
When the Memphis earthquake fault goes off again, what happen to the 1,000,000 tons of pressurized gas underneath the suddenly fractured and lifted Illinois rock?
Kit Carruthers January 14, 2015 at 3:13 pm
Why is it ridiculous that CO2 is classed as a pollutant?
————-
Because there is no scientific evidence to support it. Man has been producing CO2 in significant quantities since the Industrial Revolution. That’s over one and fifty years, with no adverse effects. The EPA ruling was based on predictions that have not come true, and have not for over twenty years.
That’s why it is ridiculous.
What empirical (not modeled, not projected) evidence is there?
My car engine would be my lowest priority in such a situation. Unless you meant this in the context of trying to escape the cloud?
Some of the comments address the analogy to nuclear waste storage, but fail to recall the hysteria the anti-nuclear movement stirred up surrounding the latter. They pointed out (incorrectly) that humans have never stored anything for more than a couple of hundred years without it being found and opened. Of course, King Tut would differ. But the hysteria had to be exaggerated in order to work, by taking one of nuclear waste’s virtues (the fact that it becomes less dangerous with time) and turning it into something fearsome. Noting that some of the intermediate wastes have very long half-lives (~40,000 years *), they painted the specter of a “nuclear priesthood” guarding the repositories against potential raiders for millenia to come — like the Knights Templar guarding the Holy Grail, I suppose.
The problem here is that the CO2 will actually never go away. And it is mobile, unlike vitrified nuclear waste. It will be forgotten, and then it will be very dangerous. This is a foolhardy thing to do, and is as irresponsible an act as I’ve ever imagined.
* By the way, looking at the make-up of nuclear waste, it takes about 500 years for the entire mix to become less hazardous than the ore from which it was extracted.
Hell, in a few years, in a sudden but irreversible fit of sanity, they’ll just open the valves and let it all back out.
Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
The enviro-Left (and Green businesses hoping for lucrative government contracts) have been pushing carbon sequestration –storing CO2 deep underground — as one way to “save the planet.” But did you know if this underground storage ruptures for any reason, the released CO2 could kill thousands? Smart. Put people at risk to fight a problem that does not exist: caatastrophic man-caused climate change. Great work, Green Movement!
We had a carbon price of $23 per ton. One million tons would have to cost less than 23 million to store indefinitely Price now is around $2-3 per ton. I find this hard to believe they can actually do this for a few million. We all know that eventually it must leak out. If it is a catastrophic failure, humans will die from asphyxiation. Any bird caught in the lack of oxygen environment will be dead very quickly.I will bet that the city of Decatur is in a valley. CO2 being heavier than air will sit in the valley, forcing out oxygen. An earthquake cracking the sandstone would give such a release, resulting in probably the death of the entire township. Knowing bureaucrats, they would demand the return of the carbon credits first before extracting(fat chance) the compensation to the families(or what is left of them.) . Carbon capture is as much of a fantasy as the notion that a trace gas is the driver of climate.
It seems that CO2 is more dangerous than most people realize. Around 7 – 10% will cause many people to become unconscious is just a few breaths. I was made aware of this when two crew members were killed. The first became unconscious visiting a cargo hold containing citrous fruit, the second was killed when he went in to try and rescue the first.
Apparently it is a nervous reaction as CO2 is used to regulate the breathing rate in humans. Over a certain level it knocks you out.and kills you
It doesn’t kill quite that rapidly. I used to work with people who enjoyed the buzz of sticking their head into freezer-chests and taking lungfuls of pure CO2 evaporating from the solid CO2 stored in them. I found the sensation is bit like having your lungs full of Coca-Cola. In hot weather it was not entirely unpleasant. The immediate effect was respiratory stimulation and “flushing”.
Then there was something else in that hold, perhaps CO. CO2 mortality studies show that mortality even in 40% CO2 does not occur until the oxygen drops to 16%.
The CO2 in your average classroom will be 2000-3000 ppm. I have personally measured 3000 in a H2S safety class, using a Draeger Detector. CO2 in submarines is in the 8000 ppm range.
http://www.examiner.com/article/co2-data-shows-nobody-s-dead-from-a-little-carbon-dioxide
Yes, probably something else in the hold. Not CO. Fruit emits ethylene gas, which is an asphyxiant and affects the central nervous system. (It’s used as an anesthetic, combined with 15% O2.). LC50 is about 6% for rats, but over four hours. Asphyxia more likely than toxicity, but I’d leave CO2 at the top of the list, since it’s the one with the highest specific gravity. I’m wondering what was in that hold on the last voyage. . .
Ethylene gas is injected into fruit warehouses to hasten ripening; haven’t heard of it being injected into a hold, but it’s possible, in which case, leaking valves could lower O2 to a dangerous concentration. Also possible the hold was set up with a Halon or CO2 fire suppression system, depending on the time-frame. Unusual for either of these systems to malfunction; double-valve-and-vents usually in place, etc., but it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened.
7.0 % = 7/100
7.0 % = 70/1,000
7.0 % = 700/10,000
7.0 % = 7000/100,000
7.0 % = 70000/1,000,000
400 ppm = 400/1,000,000
That is 178 times today’s atmospheric levels …
That company’s confined space/emergency access procedures/access watch training are fatally flawed, or were not inspected and followed: NO ONE on access watch should EVER re-enter a confined space to “rescue” a downed worker. The gas (or lack of oxygen) that put down the first worker will kill the second just as fast. What was being monitored? Was there training in place at all? Was there a standby-breather or self-contained rescue apparatus? Any retrieval dragline or winch? Any harness? Was there a air monitor? Was it calibrated? Was it powered up, or had the batteries gone bad?
The fault is NOT the CO2 in that space.
RACook,
This happened more than 50 years ago. The crew member had gone to check the temperature of the refrigerated hold. What exactly happened was not clear. AT that time the danger was not recognized. I didn’t say they were killed that quickly but clearly they were made unconscious very quickly. That it was CO2 was what I heard was the opinion of the inquest. Regulations to prevent a reoccurrence were put in place soon afterwards.
Of course, IPCC models couldn’t have successfully modeled the Lake Nyos disaster because they insist CO2 is a “well mixed gas”.
A few people have commented that they think I am being alarmist about the risks associated with CCS.
My concern is not the Decatur project – given that it is a showpiece, I’m sure the most elaborate precautions have been taken to ensure everything works smoothly, as I said in the article.
My concern is that a serious national CCS effort would thousands of Decatur scale projects every year.
According to EIA there are just under 7000 operational power plants in the USA, many of which are coal power plants. In 2012, the USA burned 825 million tons of coal.
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_05_01_a.html
At this rate of consumption, an effort to implement 100% CCS would create a requirement to bury around 2 billion tons of CO2 every year.
Since the USA would very quickly deplete the supply of optimal reservoirs located near major cities, the choice would be between building long, expensive pipelines to inconveniently remote reservoirs, or making a huge profit by cutting a few corners when it came to reservoir selection, fill pressure, and public safety.
I totally agree with your assessment about running out of GOOD storage areas near power generators.
I still disagree with comparing CCS to a Nyos style catastrophe.
It only has to happen once. With the scale of CO2 burying which would be required, sooner or later some unfortunate combination of factors will trigger a disaster. If lake turnover is the only way a sudden release can occur, with this amount of activity there will be opportunities for some of the CO2 “captured” in a poorly chosen reservoir to leak unnoticed into a nearby lake.
Then you should be much more worried about catastrophic release of natural gas from either natural reservoirs, or from underground storage.
The failure of any of these systems on the scale you imagine is minuscule.
I’m not suggesting that *every* CCS project will end in disaster. The risk for an individual CCS project probably is miniscule. What I am suggesting is that with a requirement to bury 2 billion tons+ of CO2 every year, a requirement to find up to several thousand new reservoirs every year, and a strong incentive to cut corners, sooner or later something will go badly wrong.
Hopefully the silly economics of CCS will prevent this horrible scenario from being realised.
5.5 Gt CO2/yr, with 3,000 Gt storage in the USA. So plenty. http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2013/3020/pdf/FS2013-3020.pdf
There is plenty of storage. Just not enough near to power plants.
There are already 6,000km of CO2 pipelines in the USA, many operating for decades without major incident transporting CO2 to/from remote sites. There are 100’s of thousands of km of natural gas pipelines doing likewise, again without major problems. You’re more likely to die getting in your car, or in your own home from a domestic accident than you are to be asphyxiated from a ruptured CO2 pipe.
No argument here. That is exactly what I have been saying. CCS is safe. Its just not worth the expense, in my opinion.
The odds of failure of a natural gas reservoir, or a natural gas underground storage, are much greater than the failure of a CCS project, and the odds of failure of these natural gas systems are minuscule.
I would not worry about CCS failure, as much as an explosive release of natural gas. And I don’t worry about that at all.
CCS serves no useful purpose, in my opinion, but to be against them because of the danger, is not a valid fear.
If I recall correctly, the African disaster was due to a combination of things: The sudden release of the CO2 from the lake bed and the bowl shaped area that held the heavier-than-air CO in place long enough to asphyxiate the villagers.
Yes, I went into some detail further up, on the sudden overturning of the Lake Nyos water.
As you mention, geography (and weather) also played a key role. Low lying areas were hit hardest, with some people surviving, despite being just a few meters higher in elevation than deceased neighbors.
Yet fatalities ranged from Bwabwa, 3 km to the south, to Mbuk, 15 km. to the north; and from Cha, 7 km away on the west, to Subum, 7 km eastward, all well outside the “bowl.” The CO2 overflowed the bowl, just as it will at Lake Kivu.
CCS is just plain crazy and always will be, even without imagined release disasters. Rather than piss away billions on CCS, we should be spending a few millions on relocating the population from around Lake Kivu and Mt. Nyiregongo.
So … Does the sandstone need to be fractured (fracted) to allow the gas to seep in?
The sandstone, or carbonate, needs to be connected to fracture or fault, for the HC to enter it from source rock, usually shale, usually below it.
http://www.ga.gov.au/webtemp/image_cache/GA7697.gif
The fracture can extend to surface, but the HC will only enter the reservoir, as long as the permeability of the reservoir is greater than the fracture permeability. (Path of least resistance). When the pressure in the reservoir > or = hydrostatic to surface, then flow will resume upward to the next trap.
This is a process that takes millions of years.
All I can say is if we are going to put big bucks behind something as stupid as sequestering CO2 at enormous cost, low but catastrophic risk, with zero benefit since there is no correlation or causation between CO2 and “bad things happening”, then lets put the money towards building a elevator to the moon.
It could work, you would just need to put the elevator on wheels so it followed the orbit of the moon. No big deal. Actually instead of sequestration you could pump CO2 up to the moon and start green houses up there and grow watermelons and tomatoes. Watermelon and tomatoes are good summertime food and with Global Warming and all…
Sorry could not resist more GWA – Global Warming Absurdium.
My money is on the gossamer wings.
I looked through posts but didn’t see anyone else link to this Weekly Standard article
This essay seems a terrible mix of seen and unseen fallacies for federal energy “investments” in research, plus push to get CO2 tax funding for enhanced recovery.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/next-shale-revolution_821866.html?page=1
“Using known and next-generation technologies and processes, enhanced oil recovery could increase domestic oil production—mostly from existing wells, not new fields—by tens of billions of barrels. Public policies to jump-start this nascent market could significantly enhance our energy security, improve our balance of trade, and generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue for the federal government and trillions in economic activity over the next half-century.
Equally important is the answer offered by EOR to two of the most pressing questions in energy policy: What is the future of coal in this country, and what can the federal government do to reduce the risks of climate change? The answer EOR offers is uniquely compelling: Coal stays in our energy mix while almost all of its carbon gets trapped underground.
The key to this opportunity lies in the fact that carbon dioxide is the essential ingredient in enhanced oil recovery operations. And in contrast to EPA’s divisive, expensive, and likely ineffective approach to regulating carbon emissions, EOR would give American companies an opportunity to make money putting carbon dioxide underground while producing oil, making this a wealthier, more productive country with a stronger, more secure energy economy and a cleaner environment.”
Have to wonder how greedy and stupid these “scientists” are that they decided to store an acidic gas IN the type of rock that it eats best when combined with water… This project WILL fail, only a question of time.
Removing the gas of life from the atmosphere is sincerely the dumbest thing I have ever heard of, so stupid that Science Fiction writers never even wrote about it.
Water could be a problem. Especially if there’s a leak.
Dear God, forgive them for they know not what they do!
But they know how to make money…
Les Johnson,
Thank you for your contributions on this thread.
Storing is dangerous. It may explode any time that is more dangerous. The only way is to disintegrate CO2 through chemical action. We know the issue of Stratospheric Ozone.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
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Thank you, Dr. Reddy! When we sequester carbon dioxide in this manner, we also lose its economic value. Carbon dioxide can be converted into fuels, polymers and other substances, and research on this is ongoing worldwide. Jamming it underground just wastes a potentially useful resource. Cheers, Charles the DrPH.
It is not “carbon” capture. It is “oxygen” capture, and when all the oxygen is captured there is no more problem. Gaia (or your own God) can start again.
Interesting how bureaucratic rules cause materials concentration that lead to greater danger. For example, because of trace radioactivity in titanium slag, the law requires that that radioactivity be concentrated for waste disposal. The concentrated waste is pretty dangerous stuff. If you just spread the slag over 100s of acres it would disappear into the background radiation.
Hey Erny72
“…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..”
Yes They Are Erny. And Even More Stupid Than That.
Most of ’em actually believe that cities like Melbourne, Sydney, Berlin, Shangai, Rio.Mumbai, Washington, London, Paris and all the other, and many, major cities with gob smacking energy requirements can be run by these inefficient, spasmodic subsidised shockers.
On the grounds that you learn more about the nonsense and vacuosity from the opposition by reading there opinions at there websites ( small doses at a time only and it still requires a certain steely commitment) I do visit and read what is going on The Guardian and the Australian left Fairfax Press and, of course, the real opposition to the current conservative government. The public broadcaster. The ABC.
Unfortunately Erny, Romeo and Juliet, Cleopatra and Mark Anthony nor Burton and Taylor or Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara could hold a candle to the devotion, adoration infatuation, and besotedness( is that a real word) that greens and AWGies have in regards to these unreliable and vintage technologies.
Best thing to do is just keep on whacking them with the science, research and the Mocking and Satire.They are infuriated by the blatant failure of computer models and despise the success story of the satellite era but they just cannot tolerate the mocking and satire so keep up the challenging of their dodgy data and mock and satirise to your hearts content.
For example when Eustace Cranch demands that a rep of climate science gives a RIGOROUS explanation for any dangers of CO2 I just go into hysterics. Rigorous explanations and climate science in the same sentence. Oh stop it now Eustace! Thank you but I cannot take much more humor and entertainment like that.
Gotta go now. I am off to my backyard and attach my six unicorns to a giant treadmill which is set up to my electricity supply so if you are ever in my neighbourhood in outer suburban Melbourne and you hear hoofbeats you will know what to think of… yeah … renewable energy ones.
Cheers Erny and Eustace
Bullcrap. I’m a University of Illinois scientist, and I disagree.
Thanks CRS. I agree with you. I am a German working in a mining company. CO2 is known as silent killer in our business, and – inspite of all precautions – always has taken its toll on the miners. The gas, if the barriers are opened will flood the area, and it will take a while to get it out, but one looses conciousness immediately. It is hard to understand how anyone can take the risk, low as it may be, to inject this gas below areas were humas are. One may say that chemical and physical barriers exist, but this is a strange project. Certainly all mining / deep drilling activities in the area will need to be forbidden, and a detection system and training for evacuation organized as a precaution at least. The advice is … Try to get to the next hill….