US is expanding CO2 pipelines. One poisoned town wants you to know its story
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Re: US is expanding CO2 pipelines. One poisoned town wants you to know its story
#2Somewhat related: A natural disaster when a lake released a giant burp of CO2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos_disaster
Re: US is expanding CO2 pipelines. One poisoned town wants you to know its story
#3I 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?
Re: US is expanding CO2 pipelines. One poisoned town wants you to know its story
#4Can we please avoid mass hysteria about pipelines? As you've seen, bulk shipping by rail is incredible stupid.
Re: US is expanding CO2 pipelines. One poisoned town wants you to know its story
#5Can 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.
Re: US is expanding CO2 pipelines. One poisoned town wants you to know its story
#6I 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 industria…
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.
Re: US is expanding CO2 pipelines. One poisoned town wants you to know its story
#7[flagged]
Re: US is expanding CO2 pipelines. One poisoned town wants you to know its story
#8Can we please avoid mass hysteria about pipelines? As you've seen, bulk shipping by rail is incredible stupid.
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.
Re: US is expanding CO2 pipelines. One poisoned town wants you to know its story
#9CO2 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.
Re: US is expanding CO2 pipelines. One poisoned town wants you to know its story
#10[flagged]
I understand the sentiment, but my personal opinion is that the human impact from Chernobyl specifically is vastly under counted. We're talking about a regime (the USSR) that didn't even admit there was an issue for a week while the plant was in an active meltdown. You really can't trust the official numbers related to the disaster.
I speak from personal experience. My partner is from Belarus. Their mother was nearby in Gomel at the time of the incident, and she was pregnant with my sister in law. Both my sister in law's kids have birth defects. The number of people my partner knows who have died of cancer is staggering.
And I'm not the only one to notice these impacts. Here is an article from the BBC that explores wool workers who treated radioactive wool [0]. A vast majority have either died or were forced to retire due to poor health. And these wool workers were just a microcosm of what went on in the country after the disaster.
Even today, some milk from Belarus has been found to be radioactive [1].
0: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190725-will-we-ever-kno...
1: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/world/europe/chernobyl-nu...