The World's Next Greatest Environmental Hoax

"Past and present logging interests continue to destroy vast expanses of forests above ground. Now, the coal industry proposes to declare an underground war on our forests, prairies, and future."

The Promised Land of CO2 Sequestration

Big Oil and Fossil Fuel moguls do it again. Finally they are recognized as analogs to tobacco purveyors. Fossil fuel executives know they can no longer deny global warming caused by human produced CO2 and other greenhouse gases. In desperation, they have pulled out all ethical stops.

Knowing the general public is genuinely fearful of the effects of global warming, fossil fuel moguls use fear to their advantage. Knowing America's general public is prone to accept magically quick fixes (invading Iraq: case in point), the promise of eco-friendly CO2 underground sequestration is being touted as a magically quick fix.

I detect no serious effort by environmentalists to challenge the promise of safe and reliable underground CO2 sequestration.

Doesn't anyone question anything anymore? This is a very serious hoax and we seem to be ignoring it.

My greatest wish concerning this issue is that this discussion might be forwarded on to students (all levels) and their science teachers.

Don't believe for a minute this horrific myth. CO2 can be stored safely and indefinitely in clay vessels.

Believe this:

The best of collective human ingenuity and creativity has yet to create a container that can contain, in perpetuity, CO2, O2, Helium, Nitrogen, Hydrogen or any other form of gas. It is amazing to me that so few question the promise made by fossil fuel moguls that claims CO2 can be sequestered and stored safely and reliably underground. These are the same cadre of individuals that paid scientists to lie to the public about the dangers of global warming.

The coal industry is successfully persuading powers that be and even sincere environmental advocates that it has devised a protocol that assures ozone depleting CO2 can be reliably "sequestered," i.e., stored underground. Their idea might sound plausible unless one has educated oneself about basic gas law physics.

Before continuing I must emphasize this fact. Bedrock of any kind cannot contain gases. Bedrock made of dense granite cannot contain water, much less gas, in perpetuity. "Why not," you may ask. Well, it's not because liquid water necessarily leaks through it. What does water always do? Even ice does this. Water always evaporates and ice sublimates. The process can be slow (in human time) but not so slow in biological or geological time. In fact the process is not "slow" at all.

As usual, I am NOT writing this in a context limited to the here and now and how this issue might effect me. No. I am thinking of my kids, their kids and beyond. We simply must think very long term when considering an environmental issue such as this.

I am concerned that environmental advocates and so-called "independent" scientists are taking a "let's wait and see" approach rather than proactively challenging claims made by a coal industry seeking approval to build one or more FutureGen coal-fired power plants. CO2 produced by a proposed coal burning process, commonly referred to as FutureGen, will never be stored successfully and reliably. Won't someone please ask me why I say this? Someone please ask how a layman such as myself can make such a bold claim.

The short answers to the above are: In this universe there is no such a thing as a "closed system." There are "tight systems" but no truly closed systems. Particles of mass escape even our cosmos' most powerful container - "The Black Hole"

Containers are, by natural definition, destined to be cracked, exploded or in a number of ways escaped from by whatever is therein contained. Destructive forces outside the bounds of any given container are ever-present. I ask you to think of just one natural geologic factor that is beyond humankind's ability to predict. This factor, even if we could predict when, where, and how intense it's effects, remains far beyond humankind's ability to prevent or mitigate. While pondering what this factor may be, consider the following.

Gases cannot be contained in thick solid steel and scientifically engineered tanks for very long periods. Tanks, such as oxygen and acetylene tanks can hold compressed gases a time period suitable for human use... but think really long term.

Certainly, clay vessels have never served humanity's need to store gases. Yet, silver-tongued fossil fuel purveyors are successfully convincing a so-called modern, technologically advanced society that clay vessels are suitable containers of compressed CO2 gas. I give these bottom-line oriented coal kings this much. The clay containers they speak of (i.e., earth's underground spaces) are cheap enough.

FutureGen proponents want YOU to believe CO2 gas can be pumped underground and stored reliably and in perpetuity. They are suggesting, in essence, we allow them to store gas in a clay pot. They ask us to believe their grand new plan is safe and reliable.

Please, please, please... Don't believe this lie.

Why would such a lie be told by FutureGen advocates?

To be fair, most FutureGen advocates are simply too ignorant to even question the physics of gas containment. They are paid advocates, not trained scientists. Scientist trained and eventually hired by FutureGen champions have problems all their own. They are paid to NOT really think outside the box (paradigm) they are constrained to operate in.

Thankfully, conventional coal-fired power plants must "scrub" their gaseous byproducts. Gaseous byproducts are channeled into the atmosphere via smokestacks. Smokestacks are, in the following context, the environmentalist's best friend. Smokestacks do more than just provide a place for scrubbers. A smokestack serves as an identifiable "source-point" thereby affording convenient and accurate measurement of pollutants including CO2 emissions that are released into the atmosphere.

CO2 and other pollutants pumped underground will not go into a cosmic "Black Hole." Not even some manmade giant metal, plastic, glass or any other synthetic container will be there to help seal earth's "clay vessels." But the idea sending of CO2 underground elicits a sense of finality. Perhaps this is because humans have a long history of burying their dead. Out of sight out of mind. This psychologically driven practice has been with us as long as we have used tools.

Psychologically, "out of sight... out of mind" goes a long way with infants and an adolescent human race. Folks, it's really hard to bury gas.

Words are insidiously powerful.

bury |ˈberē| |ˌbəri| |ˌbɛri| |ˌbɛri|
verb ( buries, buried) [ trans. ]
put or hide under ground : he buried the box in the back garden | [as adj. ] ( buried) buried treasure.
• (usu. be buried) place (a dead body) in the earth, in a tomb, or in the sea, typically with funeral rites : he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
• figurative lose (someone, typically a relative) through death : she buried her sixty-year-old husband.
• completely cover; cause to disappear or become inconspicuous : the countryside has been buried under layers of concrete | figurative the warehouse was buried in the faceless sprawl of the city.
• move or put out of sight : she buried her face in her hands | with his hands buried in the pockets of his overcoat.
• figurative deliberately forget; conceal from oneself : they had buried their feelings of embarrassment and fear.
• overwhelm (an opponent) beyond hope of recovery : he boasted that socialism would bury capitalism.
• ( bury oneself) involve oneself deeply in something to the exclusion of other concerns : he buried himself in work.

PHRASES

bury the hatchet end a quarrel or conflict and become friendly.

bury one's head in the sand: ignore unpleasant realities.

Yes, words and concepts related to words are quietly powerful.

Another factor adding to our apparent eagerness to accept FutureGen claims is embodied in the fact that we all seem to want to believe in the myth of the "closed system." The fact is, there is none.

Corked clay pots will hold pressurized gas... for a while. FutureGen's pots are not even corked but advocates present bedrock as being analogous to cork. For the moment let's just accept this flawed analogy. If the clay cracks... the earth burps. This burp will be no less desirable than the burp of a glutton. Corked or not, the gas escapes.

Huge volumes of STP gas (a gas collected under Standard Temperature and Pressure) can be stored in a remarkably small space when collected and subjected to increased pressure and in decreased temperature. On the surface, this fact bodes well for the FutureGen hoax. Bedrock will undoubtedly retard the release of CO2 into the atmosphere but I challenge FutureGen advocates to compute how effectively dirt and rock can store this gas.
http://www.shodor.org/unchem/advanced/gas/
The Ideal Gas Law gives rise to a pesky little concept known as "Entropy." I trust this law is understood, to some degree, by most. In it's simplest form, entropy means the world is falling apart. Gases lead the way toward entropy. Gas molecules are natural born loners. They seek to separate themselves from other like gas molecules. No matter how strong or large their "container" they will disperse to fill and eventually exit that container. If only a dozen molecules of gas occupy the space inside a given container a given molecule will move constantly in an effort to distance itself, as far as possible, from the others.

Bedrock, especially damp or wet bedrock, is a lousy container of gas.

It should be noted how gas laws explain entropy better than any other commonly understood form of matter.

It is likely the following set of formulas will not display properly on you monitor.... but it's ok. For this discussion, it is not necessary to see, much less fully understand, the details of the formulas below (unless one wishes to challenge established laws of physics). So I suggest you just scroll down to the words: Entropy happens. Entropy, is the abstract end point of all these laws. Gas is the physical world's most entropy prone form of matter. This is self evident. Yet, I hear few questioning the promise of underground CO2 sequestration.

A law relating the pressure, temperature, and volume of an ideal gas. Many common gases exhibit behavior very close to that of an ideal gas at ambient temperature and pressure. The ideal gas law was originally derived from the experimentally measured Charles' law and Boyle's law. Let P be the pressure of a gas, V the volume it occupies, and T its temperature (which must be in absolute temperature units, i.e., in Kelvin).

Beyond the scope of this discussion but pertinent to the topic are a series of equations that demonstrate how the same physics of the Ideal Gas Law lead to the physcial reality of Entropy.

Entropy is formally defined:

entropy |ˈentrəpē| noun Physics a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system. (Symbol: S) • figurative lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder : a marketplace where entropy reigns supreme. • (in information theory) a logarithmic measure of the rate of transfer of information in a particular message or language.

Entropy happens. Physical conditions can effect the rate of entropy. For example, boiling water to create steam increases water's rate of entropy.

Wet or damp bedrock is like moist lung membranes.

The process of respiration in the human (or any) lung best reveals another major flaw in the FutureGen myth. A concept known as "solubility coefficient" becomes an important factor to be considered. CO2 is highly soluble in the presence of H2O.

Henry’s law: Concentration of dissolved gas = pressure x solubility coefficient

Where:
Concentration: Volume of gas dissolved in each volume of water at zero degrees centigrade
Pressure:Atmospheres
Solubility coefficients [37°C]:
Oxygen 0.024
Carbon dioxide 0.57
Nitrogen 0.012
Helium 0.008

Solubility of biological gases dissolved in biological fluids

Concentration of dissolved gas = pressure x solubility coefficient

FOR O2
Concentration of dissolved gas= 1 x 0.024
= 0.024 mls/ml water
= 24 mls/litre

FOR CO2
Concentration of dissolved gas= 1 x 0.57
= 0.57 mls/ml water
= 570 mls/litre

The above means, simply this: CO2 dissolves in water at a rate more than 20 times faster than O2. In the human lung this fact means that CO2 passes 20 times easier than O2 through six layers of cells and connective tissue. In the lung, this a good thing. In simple terms, water turns blood vessels (containers of CO2) into virtual sieves where these vessels contain alveoli (tiny air vesicles that receive CO2 from spent blood). CO2 will pass from blood and into the lungs much more readily because of "water."

Underground, water is pretty much omnipotent. Some areas are wetter than others but water (moisture) is rarely totally absent under ground.

Even if the clay vessel "earth" never cracks CO2 will ooze (diffuse) through its generally moist container's membrane (crust) and into earth's atmosphere.

Questions no one seems to be asking:

On its way up and out, how will CO2 affect root systems of plants that depend on nature's balanced production of nitrogen underground? How will nitrogen-fixing bacteria respond to increasing levels of CO2 oozing up and into their habitat? What about lower forms of animal life? What about higher forms of animal life? What about the proverbial "food chain?"

We continue to destroy vast forests above ground? Must we now inaugurate a subterranean assault on our forests and prairies?

For the Sake of Argument:

Let's assume FutureGen can guarantee "no earthquakes."

Let's assume FutureGen can greatly retard the release of CO2 first into the earth's crust and then into its atmosphere.

Now let's go back and consider the smokestack. Remember, a smokestack provides a specific source-point from which to accurately measure coal-fired power plant emissions. Ask FutureGen proponents where and how they intend to monitor the release of CO2 into the atmosphere. They will tell YOU, "we don't have to measure because the gas will be "reliably" sequestered underground. A most important factor to consider is that CO2 oozing from countless randomly dispersed exit points in the earth's crust will likely remain in undetectable amounts i.e., parts per million (ppm). Sounds great doesn't it?

Even if detected, these amounts will certainly be considered negligible and/or insignificant by our EPA and other so-called official governmental watchdogs.

The problem is that CO2 escaping earth's crust and into the atmosphere will do so in minute volumes at any given monitoring site (should monitoring be done at all). FutureGen advocates want the public to "leave it at that." What futureGen is doing is simply turning the earth's crust into a smokestack with an invisible orifice of colossal proportion. An undetermined, but huge, area around the point at which CO2 is forced into the earth will become an enormous, yet invisible, smokestack. Diffusion of CO2 will occur and spread over many square miles of space before reaching the earth's surface. A smokestack with an opening diameter of hundreds or thousands of square miles will predictably yield undetectable or very low readings from specific point monitoring devices. No matter where the measurement(s) is.are taken, the measured amount will likely be negligible. This will create a new battle for environmentalists similar to the one we are so accustom now. Cumulative effects on the health of our planet are sometimes difficult to predict when measurement of minute impacts is difficult or impossible to document.

This is the goal of FutureGen. By making measurement of CO2 emissions next to impossible to measure they achieve their goal. Their claim will be this: "Cumulative effects" too are negligible and they will demand environmentalists prove them wrong. How convenient for FutureGen. FutureGen is a project designed to disperse and thereby hide emissions from a coal-fired power plant that still produces just as much CO2 as a conventional plant.

If FutureGen plants materialize, CO2 emissions measurements will not offer environmentalists any support but an understanding of basic science and gas law physics will. Our best hope, remains however in preventing FutureGen from becoming a reality. This one case where an ounce of prevention is truly worth a ton of cure.

The reality of CO2 escape is complicated but not beyond the lay person's ability to think through. What FutureGen proponents have done (successfully so far) is to distract most would-be skeptics from what I will call "The Fog Effect." A dense fog represents an enormous amount of H2O. Yet, meteorologists don't bother to measure it as rain. Yet, both are H2O.

CO2 from FutureGen storage sites will enter the atmosphere but only after permeating earth's crust, including it's top-soils. Gas does NOT behave like water. Gas does NOT flow. Gas spreads. Gas will move from areas of high concentration to low concentration and will generally follow a path of least resistance but gas will always spread rather than flow.

"Out of site - out of mind" must not be our attitude. I am not comfortable that CO2 oozing up from the earth's depths will have no impact on subterranean life. CO2 permeating earth's crust will have implications on subterranean life from bacteria, to earthworms, salamanders, cave and den dwellers, and root systems of plants. Who can guarantee those implications will not adversely affect this cryptic, but very important, ecosystem.

Surely by now, we already know the serious effect and side effects increasing levels of CO2 impose on our atmosphere. We pollute our atmosphere with CO2. Do we now condone polluting the depths of our planet with CO2?

The industry is presenting their "big idea" of safe and reliable CO2 underground sequestration as a "given" and therefore will not discuss the physics, chemistry, biology, or ecology of the CO2 it intends to "sequester" underground. However, the industry is careful to refer to project as an "experiment," a term they will remind the courts of when lawsuits begin to appear in the future. They will claim FutureGen has no responsibility for an experiment that in their words, "did not produce the desired results." But then it will be too late.

So-called scientists supporting FutureGen, in my view, are no less responsible for the future liabilities of FutureGen than Marlboro scientists are for their past and present efforts to hide the effects of cigarette smoking.

Should FutureGen succeed in its campaign, and sadly I believe it will, the future will repeat history. As forests and prairies begin to demonstrate presently unknown, but likely harmful, effects of a CO2 fog slowly saturating the ground, lawsuits will commence. I am afraid this will become yet one more case of "too little too late." Once CO2 is pressurized far beneath the earths surface it will have been released into an "open system" and recovery i.e., mitigation will likely be impossible. Geologists and oil explorers locate oil. They do not identify and map the literally millions of finger-like cracks and channels that become an extended network of more millions of hair thin, root-like projections reaching unknown distances and into unknown places in our earth's crust.

These hair thin, root-like projections will be the conduit CO2 utilizes to spread underground and eventually shuttle its molecules through a porous system of bedrock and on to earth's surface. Gases need a space only as large as the size of one of its molecules to escape from one space to another. To illustrate: The microscopic spaces between seemingly solid (cohered) grains of sand in sandstone bedrock provide adequate passageways to gases like CO2. The fog of CO2 will simply do what gases do... gases always expand to fill their containers and in the case of FutureGen, there is no container. This rule is basic in gas law physics. The teaching of an adjunct to this law is often neglected, however. Gas cannot be contained in perpetuity. If a black hole has leakage... so will any container nature and/or man can devise.

One can search the internet and find very little discussion or scientific examination of the behavior of pressurized CO2 stored underground. At the web site below, FutureGen proponents clearly demonstrate the extreme measures they will go to avoid an actual meaningful scientific discussion about CO2 underground sequestration and "How it Works."

The collection of five paragraphs (How it Works) below is typical of information one will find concerning how FutureGen will protect the environment. The common thread in articles like this is that they never even attempt to address obvious questions, like those I presented above. Attached in this email message is a graphic illustration that shows the essence of a FutureGen coal-fired power plant and CO2 sequestration. While contemplating the graphic, focus on the CO2 sequestration pathway and its "supposed" final destination, below some bedrock shelf an into a space vacated by liquid petroleum. Remember there is no such thing as a gas tight container. Bedrock will slow but not stop CO2 escape to the surface and into our atmosphere.

FutureGen contradicts itself when it boasts that "sequestered" and pressurized CO2 will be used to force liquid petroleum out of the ground. I'll spare detailed explanation here but just consider this. Your carbonated soft drink goes nowhere when under pressure of CO2 unless there is an opening somewhere or i.e., the lid is loosened or removed. The earth has no lids... only openings. Sure, stubborn liquid petroleum will be forced, using pressurized CO2, into wells where it can be collected. Half truths, however, are just that. While CO2 is forcing liquid petroleum into desired spaces underground, CO2 is constantly escaping it's tomb via nearly an infinite source of escape routes. This undesirable and undetectable escape of huge volumes of CO2, collectively speaking, will continue as long as there are two molecules of CO2 left underground.

FutureGen's "so-called explanation" of how CO2 sequestration supposedly works includes a graphic that can be seen online.
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How it works (according to FutureGen advocates)

The prototype plant will establish the technical and economic feasibility of producing electricity and hydrogen from coal (the lowest cost and most abundant domestic energy resource), while capturing and sequestering the carbon dioxide generated in the process.

The project will employ coal gasification technology integrated with combined cycle electricity generation and the sequestration of carbon dioxide emissions. It will be supported by the ongoing coal research program, which will also be the principal source of technology for the prototype.

The initiative is a government/industry partnership to pursue an innovative show- case? project focused on the design, construction and operation of a technically cutting-edge power plant that is intended to eliminate environmental concerns associated with coal utilization. This FutureGen plant will act as a living prototype,? with future technology innovations incorporated into the design as needed.

The FutureGen project will require 10 years to complete. DOE would fund $800 million and the National FutureGen Alliance consortium of private utility and coal-mining companies would invest about $200 million in the plant.

In the operational phase, the project will generate revenue streams from the sales of electricity, hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The revenue will be shared among the project participants (including the federal government) in proportion to their respective cost-sharing percentage, according to the DOE.

End
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So... FutureGen is pretty thorough in their explanation of "How it Works," eh? I hope you notice they don't even begin to discuss the process of CO2 sequestration or explain how bedrock is supposed to contain the gas. All they do is provide a great sounding title to a collection of paragraphs and count on no one reading or contemplating the five paragraphs containing absolutely no explanation of" how it works." Instead they lead the reader into a discussion of "how the effort to win a FutureGen power plant works."

...and sadly, work it does.

Do you recall words exactly or quite similar to these? "Please fill out the following survey (questionnaire) so that we may better serve you."

The absolutely most powerful science in today's society is the science of psychology. Corporate giants employ the vast majority of these scientists and practitioners. Some are called marketing strategists. Don't kid yourself. These so-called strategists are well-trained in the corporate hi-jacked science of psychology. Corporate psychology seeks to know what you are thinking and how best to shape your thinking to their advantage. How many surveys have you filled out since discovering the internet? How many so-called independent polls? How many commercially generated questionnaires?

Familiar?

How much do you typically spend on your vacation? How many miles are you willing to drive? Do you prefer to bank online? How did you hear about us? What kind of pet(s) do you have?

You know there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these questions posed to you in the course of a year. Hopefully you avoid answering them. Many, however, feel important and honored when they are asked to complete such questionnaires. Now consider the fact that you and/or others are categorized among literally thousands of categories with millions of others with similar habits and attitudes.

Compile GM, Ford, GE, Sony, ExxonMobil, BP, Wal-Mart, ConAgra, Procter & Gamble, and countless other databases and predicting how the "masses" will respond to words, phrases, ideas, and outright propaganda is an elementary task.

"Sequestration." Don't you just love the word? It's been a favorite word of mine ever since I first it learned years ago. CO2 Sequestration.... it's almost poetic!

I dare say, the largest data bank on the planet is about you and me and how we think, behave, and respond to "words."

Corporate America knows or has access to how you think. To think not is to deny (bury) volumes of information Corporate America maintains about you. If they choose to know you... they will know you.

One thing they know for sure about the lot of us... if it's "out of sight...." it's "out of mind."

When is the last time you witnessed... live coverage of our troops in Iraq? In Afghanistan? "Out of sight... out of mind."

When is the last time our news media showed its viewing audience a mangled, lifeless little Iraqi or Afghan boy or girl who happened to be in the way of U.S. shock and awe? There are now hundreds of Iraqi and Afghan little girls and boys who have met this fate? Out of sight... out of mind?

See how well it works?