America Will Bury It's Carbon Emmisions--UNDERGROUND!

An interesting story from CNN.

New Haven, West Virginia (CNN) -- Nestled in the heart of American coal country, on the banks of the Ohio River, an expensive, high-stakes experiment is under way -- one that could fundamentally alter the way the world manages carbon emissions.

At first glance, American Electric Power's Mountaineer plant looks like its traditional coal-fire counterparts. But the newest area of the plant, a towering five-story, multi-million dollar structure that began operating this fall, makes this facility one-of-a-kind.

It's the world's first-ever, coal-fire power plant to capture and store some of the carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere as a heat-trapping pollutant.

Brian Sherrick, who manages the project for American Electric Power, explains: "We take that CO2, then inject it into the ground into one of two injection reservoirs."

Sherrick says the West Virginia plant has received worldwide attention, especially as countries like China and India grapple with pollution from coal as well.

"We want to see how well the process works, what energy demand it requires with electricity and steam," Sherrick said.

The project is an expensive partnership between plant owner American Electric Power and French company Alstom. Together, the two companies are spending more than $100 million to capture just a tiny fraction of the plant's carbon emissions -- under two percent.

The goal? To see if the technology can be ramped up for wide-scale commercial use.

The rest of the story can be read here.

So this is interesting ain't it? Is this even smart. Even the guy doing it doesn't know really.

"Let's face it, this is an experiment. The nature of an experiment is that you do not know what will happen," she says.

I can't even think of the negative aspects associated with doing this, I'm not a geology kind of guy.

Any thoughts?

~Keeper

How about large volumes of CO2 leaking into basements? Cave structures? Water tables? Ground water?

Or ,

How about the danger of people buying into this crapola and spending even larger portions of our GDP and taxes on more useless things that will continue to put big money into the hands of the wealthy and take a little more from everybody else?

At first I thought this was baloney. But...

The more I thought about it the more it makes sense. Where do we get Coal, Oil and Natural gas from presently?

From underground. I think nature may know how to deal with such things.


Just a thought.

It could be deadly.

Take for instance Lake of Death

So what could happen is they can pack so much CO2 into the reservoir that it eventually blows up and kills everybody within a certain mile radius because the freaking geniuses trumpeting this stuff don't realize that emitting CO2 in the atmosphere is the only safe way to disperse CO2.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Yeah I am also thinking it's a good initiative, I mean ofcourse it's not helping us get greener, but at least it's better than dumping it into the atmosphere, we know what kind of effect that has.

~Keeper

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
reply to post by SLAYER69

 

Yeah I am also thinking it's a good initiative, I mean ofcourse it's not helping us get greener, but at least it's better than dumping it into the atmosphere

~Keeper

Or worse dumping our waste into the oceans. The air is one thing the Oceans on the other hand is where the majority of life on Earth is located. We really have no way of knowing just how much damage we have already done.

[edit on 7-12-2009 by SLAYER69]

I expect a lot of people may reach a point in which they can not afford electricity any more. They will have no choice but to cut the power off and go by candle light. Heating will have to be by other means. Welcome to the 1800's all over again. There are a lot of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. Prices may go up 50%.

reply to post by SLAYER69


It'll take another 100 years of dumped scientific data to show that Slayer lol.

I'm sure we have a pretty good idea, they just won't tell us about it. It would certainly cause rioting in the streets if people really knew just how bad we've or I should say Corporations, have made our environment.

~Keeper

I personally think it's a stupid thing to do.

But I do ask: don't they rely on trees as carbon sinks? That's similar.

Why is it so fricken' hard for people to understand if you're doing too much of something to your own detriment, stop doing it too much!

What happens when the pressure from the CO2 builds up to dangerous levels, and massive rock fissures occur as a result? What about when sinkholes begin to form when pockets of rock give way, and then the gasses explode back into the atmosphere?

Originally posted by SLAYER69

Or worse dumping our waste into the oceans. The air is one thing the Oceans on the other hand is where the majority of life on Earth is located. We really have no way of knowing just how much damage we have already done.

[edit on 7-12-2009 by SLAYER69]

How about we actually concentrate some money and effort on cleaning up the gigantic trash piles in the Pacific Ocean, as opposed to going after ill-proven atmospheric effects with money-grabbing taxation schemes?

[edit on 12-7-2009 by TheAgentNineteen]

Please people - don't panic!

Remember fuel (like gasoline) is currently stored in underground caverns. With quite a safety record I might add. Gasoline is far far deadlier than CO2 and far far more explosive.


CO2 is not hazardous to the environment. It dissolves quite nicely in water.

Trees are not a carbon sink. Trees are, in fact, temporary storage devices for CO2. As the tree grows, it requires CO2 for growth. Eventually, the tree dies and rots, releasing the same CO2 back into the environment (and more)

Tired of Control Freaks.

I think we should make pellets and plant them in the rainforest's. Then we would have to harvest them more frequently cause they are growing too fast.

Originally posted by tothetenthpower

I can't even think of the negative aspects associated with doing this, I'm not a geology kind of guy.

Hey, neither is a ten year old kid ... but even he knows the under the rug strategy isn't a sound one.

How about pouring money into alternative power production that dosn't cause co2 emissions fullstop,
this just seems as though it's another loophole for these industries to keep pumping as much pollutants as possible except with a "what you can't see won't hurt you" attitude.