Gas Leak a Catastrophe Not Seen Since the BP Oil Spill

a reply to: AmericanRealist

Fukushima is coming along ok I think for most places outside of Japan should be ok.

Oh, really now?

The chief of the Fukushima nuclear power station has admitted that the technology needed to decommission three melted-down reactors does not exist, and he has no idea how it will be developed.

In a stark reminder of the challenge facing the Japanese authorities, Akira Ono conceded that the stated goal of decommissioning the plant by 2051 may be impossible without a giant technological leap. “There are so many uncertainties involved. We need to develop many, many technologies,” Mr. Ono said.

Japan faces 200-year wait for Fukushima clean-up

Oh , and, about this part:

Even Chernobyl was handled decently by the Russians.᤾

You do know that the original sarcophagus is deteriorating and is also toi hot to be able to repair, so they're building another structure to cover the cover:

The construction exceeds the Stade de France national stadium in size and weighs five times more than the Eiffel Tower.

In addition to a state-of-the-art frame and auxiliary structures, the NSC is expected to be lined with special padding to protect the environment from the crumbling Shelter Object. The NSC will also be equipped with high-tech ventilation, as well as temperature and humidity regulation systems.

The new structure is part of the $2.4-billion Chernobyl Shelter Fund’s Shelter Implementation Plan. EBRD has assumed responsibility for managing the plan.

Two French companies have finished the construction of a steel structure, which is part of the New Safe Confinement (NSC) project, over the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

And similar to the gas leak in the OP there is another problem in Louisiana due to a huge sinkhole. Which seems to be about as fixable as this gas leak.

a reply to: Bluntone22

Thanks

Where's the MSM and the EPA and Obama on this catastrophe?

I know the answer.

Does anybody else know?

originally posted by: xuenchen
a reply to: FyreByrd

But Methane is colorless and odorless.

The big government failures are not.

Let me educate you.

One: A chemical is put in natural gas so that it smells - hence the ability to detect leaks.

Two: It's a private, for-profit company.

a reply to: jadedANDcynical

Well that is not very encouraging now is it?? What are the consequences of just abandoning that land and allowing the Earth to just happen??? If they never cover that dome, or if they just abandon the land around Fukushima for 100 miles in every direction, what will happen??

Methane hydrates are supposedly already linked to a couple of mass extinctions in the pre Jurassic days right? So, now over the last thirty years or so there are incidents that involve the release of this same type of methane??

I suppose the possibility is that we are currently going through Armageddon right now in slow motion. No big fireball from the skies or instant grand flood or mushroom clouds. Just a slow gradual process of the Earth becoming less habitable for humanity over the next centuries/millennium ???

Ahh well, I am still curious though what happens if Chernobyl or Fukushima just get abandoned and left alone, what happens??

Here is a link to the TFR information:

tfr.faa.gov...

Surface to 2000' AGL, .5NM Radius. It's actually a pretty small area.

originally posted by: AmericanRealist
[...]

The gas levels are too low for long-term health effects, according to health officials, but the odor is hard to ignore.

Thats a plus I suppose.

As in "the air is safe to breathe" ?

Now where have I heard that one before... ?

a reply to: AmericanRealist

What happens?

Either we learn to live either underground, or in geodesic structures made of ferrocrete, or we perish good and hard.

a reply to: TrueBrit

right but I am more curious as to the exact process that will unfold as a result of neglecting these disasters. Is it like spewing radioactive isotopes into the air?? does it burn out a hole in the atmosphere???? Does more and more land become exposed and radiated over time??? how does it lead to worst disaster from neglect and how wide is the coverage???

originally posted by: AmericanRealist
a reply to: Raggedyman

Well, the waters in my part of the gulf have never been as vibrant and pristine as ever. I tend to go snorkeling at Howard Park Beach in Tarpon Springs, its awesome out there.

Fishing is as good as its ever been. Im still paying a fair price for shrimp and fresh gulf catches.

I figured the heavy isotopes from Fukushima just sink into the sediment off shore no??

The fishing has been great here in our area because all the fish have moved in away from the dead zone that the BP oil spill created. Tuna have moved in as well. I wouldn't eat any fish out there but love catching them.

You are in my town lol. I do not go to Howard, too many tourist. I take the boat out to the islands or offshore to fish. I would go to Sunset before Howard. Funny how many people do not know what a paradise we have here off the beaches.

a reply to: Patriotsrevenge
Oh hello there. Yes I really enjoy the pristine waters off of Tarpon Springs. There is another beach just South I rarely see anyone at, is that Sunset??? I always wondered if the sea grass beds there were as plentiful as Howard Park.

According to Tampa Bay Watch, we just reached a milestone goal that was set thirty years ago for the restoration of the Bay's health as of the most recent surveys and sea grass coverage has now returned to 1950's levels of about 40,000 acres!! That is one hell of an accomplishment for a body of water surrounded on all sides by an urban metropolis with over 3 million people, a Coal plant, and major ports and phosphate mines!

Still nothing like Tarpon Springs though



Everyone in the house uses our own natural sponge harvested from those waters. They freaking last forever and are so absorbent and feel so nice I don't even know why anyone ever uses anything else.

a reply to: AmericanRealist

Well at Fukushima, you have a situation where you not only have the reactors, 3 of which experienced catastrophic melt downs, but you have decades of spent fuel.

If we just walked away from it and left everything as is?

-All corium quenching would cease, allowing the molten blobs to become exposed to the atmosphere directly and higher amounts of radiation and heat would lead to multiple China syndrome events wherein the cores from all thw reactors would melt down in to mudstone bedrock and probably lodge right in the underground river running beneath the plant.

There are 6 reactors at the plant, reactor 4 was empty and being prepped for a fresh core (which was in the pool waiting installation), 5 & 6 were operating nominally and sustained the least damage. Reactor 3 was running a MOX hybrid core and it went BOOM in a major way.

The oft use phrase of, "the solution to pollution is dilution," says that all these cores emitting their radionuclides for 10s of thousands of years won't have any appreciable effect on the Pacific at large but the immediate vicinity would become hazardous to biological life.

- The spent fuel (some 1100+ tons or so) would boil off its cooling water, heat up, catch fire, and begin in earnest the poisoning of the atmosphere to a significant degree and as TrueBrit says, we'd have to learn to live underground.

But guess what, most people (you, me, and a huge percentage of people alive now) affected by such an eventual happening (who also had little to no say in the events into which it would lead) would not benefit from any projective measures as might or might not exist for a scenario as described.

Guess who would be benefittng from something like an underground bunker?

The very same people who are responsible for the mess as it is now and for how bad it might become.

And that just chaps my ass.

originally posted by: Xcathdra
a reply to: reldra

Sounds like they are trying to force the gas company to speed up repairs by giving them the bill to move people. My guess is the gas company will be footing the entire bill for the displaced.

Socal Gas is relocating people and also providing reimbursement packages for those who already relocated.

So it's a start.

www.alisoupdates.com...

a reply to: jadedANDcynical

so i infer than that eventually either one of these meltdowns will kill of humanity if left unchecked, is that the short story?? sucks because at some point in time we wont be stable enough to even commit resources to such permanent eternal endeavors.

well then, how unfortunate. ahh well.

Just saw on local news that there's some progress....found this....

they've finally narrowed it down a bit—while the company is still "not sure of the exact location of the leak," they "[suspect] it is within a shallow level — within the first several hundred feet of the 8,700-foot well," a spokesperson for the company tells the LA Times.

The company's plan to drill a relief well is now underway, reports the Daily News, and they're drilling a second, backup relief well too, in case the first one doesn't do the trick. The main relief well won't be complete until March, though; the backup well will only begin to be drilled in January, with completion taking between three and four months.

Here's the source's title... and it is a "terrifying hugeness".... check it out
New Aerial Video Shows the Terrifying Hugeness of the Porter Ranch Gas Leak


I hadn't realized how far away the gas was shipped from. Something I learned in another source, re smell....

a safety feature in a transmission system that carries gas from hundreds of miles away.

Producers in Texas, the Midwest and Rocky Mountain states inject trace amounts of two foul-smelling chemicals into the gas for a reason .... to let noses sniff out the presence of the otherwise odorless methane.

The gas is then pumped by pipeline to Southern California Gas Co.'s Aliso Canyon facility for storage.

source

a reply to: Bluntone22

OMG That article !!!! Old well.... no safety valve....!!!!

Before she retired in 2014, Anneliese Anderle was a field engineer for the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermic Resources, which regulates oil drilling. She worked out of offices in Bakersfield, Cypress and Ventura, and for a while she was responsible for monitoring the massive natural gas storage field at Aliso Canyon.

Southern California Gas owns the facility, which distributes gas to 14 power plants and 21 million customers. In her years monitoring wells at Aliso Canyon, Anderle says she got to know the gas company as "a first-class operation."

The company tended to be conservative, and to do things rigorously and by the book. But the wells at Aliso Canyon were aging, and many were starting to wear out.

"They have a beautiful facility," she says. "It's gleaming. They have great roads and well-marked pipelines. Everything's painted. But just below the surface, it's junk."

On Oct. 23, gas company employees noticed a leak out of the ground near a well called SS-25. It was late afternoon, so they decided to come back in the morning to fix it.

The next day, however, their efforts were unsuccessful. Gas was now billowing downhill into Porter Ranch, an upscale community on the northern edge of the San Fernando Valley. Customers were beginning to complain about the smell.

Gas leaks are not uncommon, and it took a couple weeks for this one to become news. When Anderle heard about it, in early November, she pulled up the well record on a state website. The file dates back to when the well was drilled in 1953. As she looked it over, she zeroed in on a piece of equipment 8,451 feet underground called a sub-surface safety valve.

If it were working properly, the gas company would be able to shut down the well. The fact that SoCalGas hadn't meant, to her, that it must be broken. The records indicated that it had not been inspected since 1976.

"That's almost 40 years," she says. "It's a long time to leave it in the well."

As weeks went by and further efforts to stop the leak failed, it became clear that the company was dealing with an unprecedented catastrophe.

On Dec. 15, the Weekly interviewed Rodger Schwecke, a SoCalGas executive who is helping to coordinate the response to the leak. Asked about the safety valve, he said it wasn't damaged. It actually wasn't there.

"We removed that valve in 1979," he said.

He pointed out that the valve was old at that time and leaking. It also was not easy to find a new part, so the company opted not to replace it. If SS-25 were a "critical" well — that is, one within 100 feet of a road or a park, or within 300 feet of a home — then a safety valve would be required. But it was not a critical well, so it was not required.

"Now there's definitely going to be a push for changing the regulations," Anderle said, when told of the missing valve. "You get rid of a safety valve because it wasn't working? A safety valve would have shut the damn well down! They're in a bunch of trouble."

a reply to: TrueBrit

With all their D.U.M.B's it sounds like the elites are gearing up to do just that.

a reply to: desert

Embed that ish bro, people need to see this.
I dont believe the gas company at all. What if ... what if there are more occurring in different places on Earth right now, but this is one of the only near a population center??

Well guys, it was a fun ride I suppose. Looks like we may all see ELE within our generations after all. To the people who said "come on dude, this has happened before" , your right. And they both led to ELE's .... Well, least I get enough time to see the kids grow up.

The Perp in the Greatest Mass Extinction on Earth? Methane

It is the Earth’s most severe known extinction event, with up to 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species becoming extinct. It is the only known mass extinction of insects. Some 57% of all families and83% of all genera became extinct. Because so much biodiversity was lost, the recovery of life on Earth took significantly longer than after any other extinction event, possibly up to 10 million years. [Other sources say 30 million years.]

Now the second part of this discussion. People have been puzzled about the cause for a long time, and how it managed to be so … effective. Turns out that researchers at MIT may have found the answer — atmospheric methane. It’s the only explanation that fits the facts, and there’s much evidence to support it. Given the factual data that’s been assembled about the event, all of the other, previously-thought-plausible explanations have to be dismissed. Not one of the others could explain the combination of facts now known.

UPDATE

Southern California Gas officials say a seventh effort to shut down an out-of-control well venting methane from a natural gas storage field north of Los Angeles has failed.

Well-control experts once again tried to force mud and brine down the damaged well over the Christmas holiday, trying to stem a gusher of 67,000 pounds per hour of methane. It’s considered the worst release of climate-changing methane from the oil and gas industry in California history.

...

This latest failure to control the well from above means the gas utility will continue with the solution it has pursued since Dec. 4 — drilling a relief well that will intercept the damaged one. That intersection will happen at a depth of approximately 8,500 feet. The relief well bore has reached a depth of about 3,800 feet, said Melissa Bailey of Southern California Gas. With that progress and now with the pinpoint location of the pipe underground, the company has shortened the estimate for completion to late February.

Latest Effort To Control Damaged Gas Well Unsuccessful

And there is a video showing the plume as it wafts past a nearby neighborhood:



If this thing continues at its current rate of discharge, by February 1st, it will have released an approximately 54,672,000 additional pounds of methane into the atmosphere.

By comparison, US industry released 636.31 million metric tons in 2013 as per this page, which works out to this leak, in a little over one month's time ( keep in mind it has been leaking since late October), releasing around 11.63% of the entire amount of methane released by all of US industry for the whole year of 2013.

a reply to: jadedANDcynical

Thats what im saying. Man I had no idea tapping into methane could be this dangerous.

originally posted by: FyreByrd

originally posted by: xuenchen
a reply to: FyreByrd

But Methane is colorless and odorless.

The big government failures are not.

Let me educate you.

One: A chemical is put in natural gas so that it smells - hence the ability to detect leaks.

Two: It's a private, for-profit company.

There are many different odorants, mostly sulfur based, that are added into the gas stream only during distribution. The source of the gas will determine how detectable it is by smell before the odorant is added. Associated gas, that is gas that is produced with oil, will contain other components that can be detected by smell.