Carbon Dioxide Injected Underground Now Leaking=
The Canadian Press
Bob Weber
01/11/2011
One of the newer Global Warming schemes, from the great
scientific geniuses that brought us highly toxic mercury filled light bulbs=
–
putting tons of mercury now in homes offices, in land fills and ultimately =
into
our water supply to SAVE THE PLANET, Ethanol that takes more energy to crea=
te
and gets poorer gas millage making it far more polluting than using regular
gasoline [Not to mention that the use of 30% of America’s, the EUR=
17;s
and Brazil’s total corn production -- is taking food out of the mouth=
s of
the poor worldwide, Oh did we mention it takes 10’s 0f billions of
Federal Subsidies running up our national debt. Any way the latest scheme of this b=
rain
trust is to spend billions of dollars to inject carbon dioxide deep into the
ground, thereby to permanently dispose of the stuff and so that this carbon
dioxide will never let it see the light of day. Only there are unintended
consequences that these fake researchers and fake scientists never accounted
for. Imagine if NASA in the 1=
960’s
used these guys to build the space program. Or built the cars and the buses an=
d the
planes we travel on. Well the=
y are
doing all that now with green vehicles.
A Saskatchewan farm couple whose land lies over the world's larg=
est
carbon capture and storage project says greenhouse gases that were supposed=
to
have been injected permanently underground are leaking out, killing animals=
and
sending groundwater foaming to the surface like shaken-up soda pop.
Cameron and Jane Kerr, who own nine
quarter-sections of land above the Weyburn oilf=
ield
in eastern Saskatchewan, released a consultant's report Tuesday that claims=
to
link high concentrations of carbon dioxide in their soil to the 8,000 tonnes of
the gas injected underground every day by energy giant Cenovus
in its attempt to enhance oil recovery and fight climate change.
"We knew, obviously, there was something
wrong," said Jane Kerr.
Cameron Kerr, 64, said he has farmed in the =
area
all his life and never had any problems until 2003, when he agreed to dig a
gravel quarry.
That gravel was for a road to a plant owned =
by
EnCana — now Cenovus — which had begun three years earlier to
inject massive amounts of carbon dioxide underground to force more oil out =
of the
aging field.
Cenovus has injected more than 13 million tonnes of the gas underground. The project has become=
a
global hotspot for research into carbon capture and storage, a technology t=
hat
many consider one of the best hopes for keeping greenhouse gases out of the
atmosphere.
By =
2005,
Cameron Kerr had begun noticing problems in a pair of ponds which had forme=
d at
the bottom of the quarry. They developed algae blooms, clots of foam and
several colours of scum — red, yellow and
silver-blue. Sometimes, the ponds bubbled. Small animals — cats, rabb=
its,
goats — were regularly found dead a few metres
away.
Then =
there
were the explosions.
"=
;At
night we could hear this sort of bang like a cannon going off," said J=
ane Kerr,
58. "We'd go out and check the gravel pit and, in the walls, it (had)
blown a hole in the side and there would be all this foaming coming out of =
this
hole."
"=
;Just
like you shook up a bottle of Coke and had your finger over it and let it
spray," added her husband.
The w=
ater,
said Jane Kerr, came out of the ground carbonated.
"It would fizz and foam."
Alarmed, the couple left their farm and move=
d to
"It was getting too dangerous to live
there," Cameron Kerr said.
In 2006, Cameron Kerr said, the province's N=
ew
Democrat government agreed to conduct a year-long study to find out what was
going on. That government fell to the Saskatchewan Party in the subsequent
election and the year-long study was never done.
Cameron Kerr said provincial inspectors did
conduct a one-time check of air quality — on a day, he added, with
50-kilometre winds. Then the Kerrs sold some of=
their
cattle and paid a private consultant for a study.
Pau=
l Lafleur of Petro-Find Geochem
found carbon dioxide concentrations in the soil last summer that averaged a=
bout
23,000 parts per million — several times those typically found in fie=
ld
soils. Concentrations peaked at 110,607 parts per million.
As =
well, Lafleur used the mix of carbon isotopes he found in t=
he gas
to trace its source.
&qu=
ot;The
... source of the high concentrations of CO2 in the soils of the Kerr prope=
rty
is clearly the anthropogenic CO2 injected into the Wey=
burn
reservoir," he wrote.
&qu=
ot;The
survey also demonstrates that the overlying thick cap rock of anhydrite over
the Weyburn
reservoir is not an impermeable barrier to the upward movement of light
hydrocarbons and CO2 as is generally thought."
Lafleur suggests the carbon dioxide could leak=
into
area homes. The gas is not poisonous, but =
it can
cause asphyxiation in heavy concentrations, which is what Cameron thinks
happened to the animals around his ponds.
The
suggestion that the Weyburn capture and storage
project might be leaking could have implications far beyond one rural neighbourhood.
The
&qu=
ot;I
would like to see it stopped," Jane Kerr said. "I don't think it's
doing what it's supposed to do."