Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Unintended (but predictable) consequences

Holy crap! Saskatchewan's CO2 storage facility has sprung a leak:
A Saskatchewan farm couple whose land lies over the world’s largest carbon capture and storage project says greenhouse gases that were supposed to have been injected permanently underground are leaking out, killing animals and sending groundwater foaming to the surface like shaken-up soda pop. ...
It's a predictable risk that has been assessed as acceptable and manageable [until it isn't]. More consequences of global warming hysteria?

Anthony Watts responds to a skeptic.

6 comments:

wilson said...

The farm is 2 klm from the injection well,
and no other farmers in the area are experiencing the same issues.

The couples farming practices need to be part of the study before jumping to conclusions about C02, excessive nitrogen kills too.

Xanthippa said...

From more comments on the Watts site - looks like some scientists (I don't know their reputation) asked for permission to test and measure the emissions - and the farmers wouls not let them....

Still, regardless of the specific case, this is a potential hazard - one we ought to understand before we implement.

Anonymous said...

Has nobody thought of the stupidity of trapping CO2 underground? Sure the carbon came from underground in the oil, but the oxygen didn't. They are trapping 2 parts of oxygen from the atmosphere for every one part of carbon that is placed back underground. Does this not seem like a problem?

JR said...

Yes, there's lots more in the updates. From the Wpg Free Press story ref'd by Anthony:

... the Kerrs paid a consultant for a study.

Paul Lafleur of Petro-Find Geochem found carbon dioxide concentrations in the soil last summer ... several times those typically found in field soils.

Lafleur also used the mix of carbon isotopes he found in the gas to trace its source.

"The ... source of the high concentrations of CO2 in the soils of the Kerr property is clearly the anthropogenic CO2 injected into the Weyburn reservoir," he wrote.

... Cenovus has hired three independent consultants to evaluate Lafleur's work.

"There is no evidence so far for escape of injected CO2 from depth," the report said. ... Lafleur's report wasn't enough on its own to conclude carbon dioxide is leaking. ... "There are a lot of other potential sources of the CO2."

He added, however, that Lafleur has raised some significant questions. "We do have to take into account some of the carbon isotope analysis."

Lafleur said there's no way the heavy concentrations of the gas he found could have been naturally generated. "Biogeneic gas is simply not the source of this tremendous amount of CO2, both from a volume point of view and from the isotope point of view.

No doubt there's a lot more to learn about this.

Anonymous said...

Don't tell me another warmist fairy tale is about to bite the dust. Like biofuels, this nonsense will prove to be another disaster and yet the Stelmack PCs in Alberta keep on pouring in money from the 2 billion fund set up to test this disaster. Talk about throwing taxpayer dollars down a rat hole.

JR said...

Yep, any project intended to save us from "global warming" is guaranteed to be a waste, or worse.