US is expanding CO2 pipelines. One poisoned town wants you to know its story | Hacker News Reader

US is expanding CO2 pipelines. One poisoned town wants you to know its story

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97 pointsrntn65 comments

Somewhat related: A natural disaster when a lake released a giant burp of CO2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos_disaster

Worth the click! I had no idea there were such things as limnic eruptions.

Who would have thought lakes could choke surrounding area. TIL

I think it's a very special case of a deep lake in volcanic caldera in a tropical zone with a lot of vegetation and heat to make it decompose. Usual lakes don't do that (IIUC).

Wiki states many theories, no conclusive way to know and then makes a series of assumptions about velocity, force, vector etc.

I posit it could have been a sandworm deposit site that then suffered a spice reaction and exploded, like Dune.

Still, lake exploded a gas and people within 16 miles were knocked out or killed. Nuts.

I'd just like to say that I've spent a good portion of day telling everyone who I think will be interested about this.

Thanks for sharing!

I wonder how practical it would be to add something smelly and distinctive to CO2 the way we do with natural gas? Otherwise a CO2 leak is really mysterious. It could be in quite low concentrations, to the point where you would only smell it if the air was getting to dangerous levels.

This wouldn't help with a release from a natural source, but if we are ramping up carbon capture efforts maybe we'll see more industrial accidents like this one?

could be harder to find something that sticks with the CO2 given the molecule sizes? CO2 is also relatively easy to monitor, so sensors + awareness of people living/working nearby should also cover a lot.

But both of course only would give better warning, not solve the challenge of dealing with the situation when it has happened.

> CO2 is also relatively easy to monitor

And yet we inexplicably don't monitor it at all. You can download apps to show you national and local levels of all sorts of pollutants... but not CO2. Outdoor CO2 is tracked at a single point on the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii... and that's pretty much it.

It's bizarre. It's easy to buy an indoor CO2 monitor (I use one to determine when I should open my windows more/less to keep the air inside fresh), but at a local/national monitoring level it simply doesn't exist.

CO2 monitors are quite expensive for normal people. Good ones like the Aranet4 are in the $200 range.

Having an effective warning system is not reliant on "every person buys their own sensors". And compared to many other threats, effective CO2 sensors are very cheap, so a community that knows it needs them can do things.

The article you’re commenting on has quite a bit of information about this and industry efforts around it.

Short answer is yes, it’s possible, and yes they are working on doing it.

Co2 is used as a marker of when the air is too stale inside. Why not just mass produce real sensors(most <$50 sensors are currently are fake and just guess based on VOC) so we can make those cheap, since it's already something we should probably keep track of?

Maybe they could be integrated into phones.

Difficult if used for beverages. In my experience CO2 may not have an odor but at high concentrations it burns the hell out of your nostrils anyway.

Ummm. Dumb question here.

Why do we have CO2 pipelines?

Wouldn’t it be cheaper to capture CO2 from the atmosphere at the location where the CO2 was needed?

Good point.

The answer is: Ridiculously high Government subsidies.

In other words, this is simply a stealth tax on the public where the only winners are corporations which benefit via very generous tax credits.

It's ANOTHER subsidy for the fossil industry. We (earth) already pay [1] them around us$1T/yr to accelerate our demise. CO2 offset subsidies are on top of this [2].

So instead of stopping X, we pay them to continue X and then pay them to cook some books about X. Insane. We will be the first species driven to extinction because the alternative wasn't profitable.

[1] https://www.iea.org/reports/fossil-fuels-consumption-subsidi...

[2] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/carbon_credit.asp

Oh, don't worry too much. As a Nobel Prize winning economist once said, Agriculture is an industry affected heavily by climate change, but it's only worth 2% of world GDP.

It's cheaper to capture it where it is concentrated, at the source (eg. power plants).

Is the efficiency gained by capturing it from a stronger concentration enough to offset the costs of building pipelines?

Why not burn wood in a room near the destination site and get extremely concentrated CO2 right there and capture that instead?

Are pipelines somehow even more economical than that?

Because then you have to transport the wood to the site, transport the ash (etc.) off the site, and build something useful to do with the produced energy. Most of that would be trucks or ships if it's on a navigable waterway.

Oil and pipeline companies are building pipes to move gases because it is the cheapest way to do it.

I think it's better to charcoal the wood and burry the charcoal. If charcoal is stored properly, it takes a lot of time to decompose and keep the carbon down there for a long time. And it has less storage problems than CO2 that is a gas and wants to escape.

Probably instead of wood, it would be better to use other agricultural waste. For example here, some sugar factories use the rests of the sugarcane ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagasse ) to burn it and produce heat and electricity. I'm not sure if it can be charcoaled and buried instead.

There's nothing remotely economical about capturing CO2 in the first place. But if you're dead set on doing it, it costs the least to do it where the CO2 concentration is the highest (where it's produced.)

fortunately we are realizing that this is not an economic problem, it is a "poison survival" problem

Carbon capture is not a solution to anything except further enriching fossil fuel companies. It's a big fat scam, the only real solutions to climate change are renewable energy and nuclear power.

Seems to be a shady political operation to help the fracking industry in the US:

> Huffman notes that today most of the carbon dioxide transported in pipelines is used for something called "enhanced oil recovery." That's a process where oil companies inject CO2 into oil wells to boost the pressure and pump out more petroleum.

> Currently over 70% of carbon capture projects involve "enhanced oil recovery," says Bruce Robertson, energy finance analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a nonprofit think tank. The CO2 in the pipeline that ruptured in Satartia was headed to an oil field where it would have been used to extract more oil.

There's nothing shady about this practice. It's simple science.

I have not seen any convincing evidence of the Economic _feasibility_ of Carbon Capture irrespective of the scientific _possibility_ of Carbon Capture.

Forgive the general public's skepticism but so far Carbon Capture comes across very much like another greenwashing attempt from industries that will drag their feet into emissions reduction.

The shady part is when you tell people it's carbon capture, with a clear hint of helping avoid CO2 emissions, when actually the end state is even more oil out of the well.

Yes, it's called Carbon Capture and Storage. Once we switch to renewables and don't need this oil any more, the expensive fancy plant is useless as it is only designed to store carbon that one way.

Legitimate question, but the answer is simple: No.

The cost of CO2 capture largely depends on the concentration of CO2. Transport is relatively cheap. If you capture from the atmosphere, that's the most expensive thing you could possibly do. That's also why people try all kinds of things to increase CO2 concentration. Like Oxyfuel technology, which basically means you're burning without nitrogen, so what you end up with has a higher CO2 content.

It's also why CCS is hard in industries where by design CO2 concentration in the exhaust is low (Aluminium is one of them), and why most of the existing CCS projects are at facilities that by design have high CO2 concentrations (mainly gas upgraders).

Can we please avoid mass hysteria about pipelines? As you've seen, bulk shipping by rail is incredible stupid.

Can we please avoid mass hysteria about rail? As you've seen, bulk shipping by pipelines is incredible stupid.

Moving dangerous stuff is always risky, there’s plenty of disasters from both. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pipeline_accidents

From 1994 through 2013, the U.S. had 745 serious incidents with gas distribution, causing 278 fatalities and 1059 injuries, with $110,658,083 in property damage.

US: From 1994 through 2013, there were an additional 110 serious incidents with gas transmission, resulting in 41 fatalities, 195 injuries, and $448,900,333 in property damage.[83] From 1994 through 2013, there were an additional 941 serious incidents with gas all system type, resulting in 363 fatalities, 1392 injuries, and $823,970,000 in property damage.[84]” The US list is so long it’s broken out by year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pipeline_accidents_in_...

The pipeline page lists individual highlights starting: Belgium 2004, killing 24 people and leaving 122 wounded… with some highlights being Quebec killing 28, 2013. China 2013 55 people were killed. India 2014 killed 22 people and injured 37, Kenya 2011 killed 100 hospitalized 120.

Mexico: 12 people were killed, killing 52 people, killed at least 27 people and injured more than 50, 2019: killed at least 96 people and injured dozens more

Russia: 1989 Up to 645 people were reported killed on June 4, 1989

Taiwan: At least 30 people were killed and over 300 injured

Of course Nigeria is the scariest with several accidents each of which killed hundreds.

The science is conclusive that pipelines are the LEAST dangerous and leaky method of transporting anything.

Most environmentally friendly too. Oil tankers, trains and trucks get into accidents and use large amounts of fuel to transport.

They are significantly more dangerous than using power lines to move the equivalent amount of energy.

This is one of the reasons we moved to electric lighting from gas lamps, but the same is true of home heating and electric cars etc.

> From 1994 through 2013, the U.S. had 745 serious incidents with gas distribution

This is incredibly misleading because of the scale and method of distribution. Tens of millions of houses in the US have gas pipelines leading directly into the kitchen! Of course there will be a lot of serious incidents.

If people shipped gas to their kitchen ranges by rail, there would be a lot more serious train incidents too!

Similarly, if you shut down pipelines, you have to include all TRUCK accidents as well, because trains are never going to solve the last-mile problem that pipelines already have.

I highlighted the bit associated with transmission vs distribution, but it’s not completely clear cut. Some issues with transmission resulted in distribution problems: https://youtu.be/QPL8dh6b1M0

Anyway, by far the safer solution is electricity not using rail or pipelines to move fossil fuels.

Tons of people (almost everyone in rural areas) do get their gas shipments by rail and truck. Although, in that case it tends to be LPG and not natural gas.

Did you read the article?

This is a pretty different risk from a hydrocarbon liquid or gas pipeline (which obviously carry their own risk).

Odorless, colorless CO2 can leak and cause suffocation with no warning. Those in the affected area may have absolutely no idea what is happening and by the time they feel the effects, it may be too late for them to take any action and move to another area.

Furthermore, the only reason these carbon pipelines exist are to take advantage of overly generous Government subsidies. There is absolutely no economic benefit whatsoever.

How does this qualify as hysteria? Who even knows CO2 is being transported via underground pipelines and that during a leak you have to worry about the gas settling and suffocating you, and that any cars/trucks will be un-able to operate in that environment?

Wouldn't just planting trees be way more economical and effective? Why isn't the government subsidizing planting trees as they are these pipelines?

How many trees do they have to cut down to run these pipelines is probably a question someone should also be asking...

unfortunately, in many places in the world, what kinds of trees and how they thrive is changing very quickly.. rain, heat and fire patterns are all changing now.. I personally support planting trees in most cases, but don't be surprised when the skeptics have some detailed rebuttals..

Trees release their carbon when they die, and they all die relatively quickly on the scales we’re talking about. If harvested and used in long lived construction, it can be longer term, but inevitably it still gets released.

Think carbon capacitor, not carbon sink.

there are extensive chapters written on this topic in IPCC publications, and in the US Climate documents, and in California Climate documents. What you say is partly true, but conveniently omits large other factors at the same time.

Such as?

Unless the tree gets subducted or interred (aka turned to Coal or similar), it’s still part of the cycle, and its carbon will still eventually return to the atmosphere.

And with the evolution of lignin eating fungi (white rot fungi being particularly efficient) many millions of years ago, good luck with that.

Capacitors are useful, but they aren’t sinks.

ok, so far.. there appear to be at least two angles.. One is the factual measure of the role of carbon in various forests over time; the second is as a target for collective action.

Deforestation and forest fire are certainly significant sources of carbon emissions. Not all carbon goes into the atmosphere, however. Given current conditions and human practices, acting now to prevent deforestation and catastrophic forest fire are significant in themselves. Forests and managed forests are an important source of food and trade goods for humans worldwide. Mangrove forests are a topic in themselves.

In IPCC_SRCCL_2019/IPCC_SRCCL_05_Chapter-2:

Global models and national GHG inventories use different methods to estimate anthropogenic CO2 emissions and removals for the land sector. Consideration of differences in methods can enhance understanding of land sector net emission such as under the Paris Agreement’s global stocktake (medium confidence). Both models and inventories produce estimates that are in close agreement for land-use change involving forest (e.g., deforestation, afforestation), and differ for managed forest. ... The gross emissions from AFOLU (one-third of total global emissions) are more indicative of mitigation potential of reduced deforestation than the global net emissions (13% of total global emissions), which include compensating deforestation and afforestation fluxes (high confidence). The net flux of CO2 from AFOLU is composed of two opposing gross fluxes: (i) gross emissions (20 GtCO2 yr–1) from deforestation, cultivation of soils and oxidation of wood products, and (ii) gross removals (–14 GtCO2 yr–1), largely from forest growth following wood harvest and agricultural abandonment (medium confidence). {2.3.1} Land is a net source of CH4 ... emissions for the 2006–2017 period (medium confidence). The pause in the rise of atmospheric CH4 concentrations between 2000 and 2006 and the subsequent renewed increase appear to be partially associated with land use and land use change. The recent depletion trend of the 13C isotope in the atmosphere indicates that higher biogenic sources explain part of the current CH4 increase and that biogenic sources make up a larger proportion of the source mix than they did before 2000 (high confidence).

"Terrestrial greenhouse gas fluxes on unmanaged and managed lands Agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) is a significant net source of GHG emissions (high confidence), contributing to about 23% of anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) combined as CO2 equivalents in 2007–2016 (medium confidence). AFOLU results in both emissions and removals of CO2, CH4 and N2O to and from the atmosphere (high confidence). These fluxes are affected simultaneously by natural and human drivers, making it difficult to separate natural from anthropogenic fluxes (very high confidence). {2.3} The total net land-atmosphere flux of CO2 on both managed and unmanaged lands very likely provided a global net removal from 2007 to 2016 according to models (-6.0 ± 3.7 GtCO2 yr–1)"

None of that contradicts what I’m saying on any meaningful timescales. You’re literally quoting 1-2 decades. That is short term.

And frankly, it’s obvious. Carbon in any form takes up space. If a forest continually sequestered carbon in solid form (in excess of its wood content, which is easy to measure and plateaus VERY quickly!), every forest that was more than a couple decades old would be sitting on top of a layer of carbon hundreds or thousands of feet deep. It would have to be.

Even the healthiest forests are lucky to have a dozen feet of soil with meaningful carbon content, and most of them it’s a couple feet.

There is nowhere else for that carbon to go except the atmosphere.

And eventually - in hundred, or a few cases a thousand or so years - all those trees die due to climate changes or fires, and they’re gone. Back into the atmosphere.

Planting trees is a terrible way to mitigate the release of CO2 into the atmosphere[1].

There are many problems (most of which are covered in that article), and they include:

- mature forests are generally carbon-neutral and can also sometimes become carbon emitters, depending on specific circumstances

- young forests sequester carbon more quickly, but the trees just aren't that big and the amount of carbon sequestered is trivial

- as trees die, they release much of the captured carbon back into the atmosphere as they decay

- planting new forests is much more expensive (in terms of time, energy, and money) than just sequestering carbon when it's produced or, better yet, not using fossil fuels as much as we have in the past

1. https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-dont-we-just-plant-lot-t...

I think you are mistaken.

Mature forests are not carbon-neutral. In the US the forests absorb about 12% of the greenhouse gas emissions [1]. Can this number go to 20%, for example? I think so. A trivial legislative change would be to stop the subsidies for ethanol, and to offer them instead to plant forests on the acreage currently used for its feedstock corn. That would be about 30 million acres. At a reasonable 15 tons of CO2 absorbed per year, that would be 450 megatons CO2 per year, or about 7% of the US emissions, so that would bring us to 19%. But more is possible.

Can we reach a point where the trees absorb 100% of the emissions (without reducing the emissions)? I don't think so. And I think it's wrong to attempt that. But trees can have a very meaningful impact, we should not dismiss them so cavalierly.

[1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

Wasn't there a general consensus from most scientist that methods for CO2 storage or filtering it out of the air are highly flawed, inefficient and not worth pursing when it comes to combat climate change?

Or do I misremember?

Last I read there were solid ideas but nothing that realistically outperformed “plant a bunch of trees.”

The co2 in the article (and apparently 70% nationwide) is being pumped into oil fields to help get the oil out.

It’s only about combatting climate change if you ask the PR department

Is it naïve to wonder if Co2 pumped underground is going to escape even if the pope's are fine ?

I don't see how CO2 pipelines make sense.

CO2 pipeline is a most stupid thing I've read about for a long time. Good luck building them.

The previous contender was H2 refilling stations.

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