It is safe to assume that none of you have seen the trailer for this movie so here it is.

The basis for the movie is that CO2 from a Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project will somehow escape from the earth and kill people in a low-lying valley.  CO2 is heavier than air, odorless, colorless, and  can displace breathable air to the point of asphyxiation.

The trailer of the movie claims that the movie is based on true events from around the world which is an intentionally misleading statement. The event to which they are referring was a natural catastrophe at Lake Nyos located in western Cameroon. A large amount of CO2 built up in the bottom of the lake, and something caused about 1.6 million tonnes of CO2 to destabilize and come out of solution rapidly. The CO2 spilled over the edge of the crater and killed around 3500 people.  Smaller events have been observed in lakes around Lake Nyos, but nothing of that magnitude. In the US small events in Yellowstone have been known to kill bison, but the reasons for the high CO2 concentrations are different.

To date, there have been no recorded CO2 leaks from CCS sites anywhere in the world, and there only a handful operating. The CCS projects are uses as a proof of concept to show that large scale CO2 sequestration is feasible. Teams of scientist and engineers work together to characterize all geologic sites being considered for CO2 Injection, and there is almost no question of whether CO2 will stay in the ground.  Even if a freak event were to occure and the CO2 somehow managed to find a direct path back to the surface the leak should be slow enough to pose little danger to the environment.
Why? Currently, the largest CCS injection demonstrations are injecting just over 1 million tonnes of CO2 a year which nicely reflect the approximate amount of CO2 a small coal fire plant produces in a year. If a Lake Nyos size event were to occur it would require releasing more than years worth of CO2 all at one time.  That scenario is effectively impossible because injection sites are constantly monitored for the development of leaks, and if a leak started it would be like trying to empty lake superior through a straw. The flue gas coming out of the stack of a coal power plant does not directly kill anyone and a leak  from a sequestration project wouldn’t either.

If you would really like to know our current status regarding Carbon Capture and Storage check out some of these links. There is a lot of science that goes into making CCS decisions.

Everything:

http://www.undeerc.org/PCOR/newsandpubs/default.aspx

Simplified Information:

http://www.undeerc.org/PCOR/newsandpubs/atlas.pdf

Videos:

http://www.undeerc.org/PCOR/documentary/

Easy Reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage/

Update:  It appears that the movie has been put on hold as they have run out of money.  Hopefully they never get the money to finish it.

Do not let the title of this post fool you. This post has nothing to do with abiotic oil generation.

While discussing EOR and CO2 sequestration with a co-worker, we both had noticed a note in a paper that we needed to be mindful of destroying  newly discovered or undiscovered microbes and viruses present in the earths crust. What is ironic is that those organisms were discovered because of the oil and mining industry.

How much biomass do microbes contribute at depth, and are they sufficiently concentrated to be a significant contributor to oil and gas generation?  I have seen several claims that the biomass of microbes in the crust could easily exceed the biomass of organisms on the surface or near surface.   I’m not going to make any wild speculations, but it seems that there could certainty be some new target formations for oil and gas development.

Microbes may even source gas in igneous rocks.  Unfortunately there is likely no way for the gas to be trapped in such a situation.  Shallow biogenic gas is already targeted in many regions around the world.  New consideration may need to be made for regions that have been overlooked in much deeper rock.  Keep in mind the process for gas generation would likely not be the same. Shallow biogenic gas forms as a consequence of microbes metabolizing organics in the ground, and the deep gas targets could have some combination of microbes metabolizing minerals or organics (each other).

I really don’t have the time to research this subject properly, but if anyone happens to have seen any papers on the subject, please pass them along to me.

Lately we have been rather bad about leaving the lights on when we leave for work.  My apartment has a lot of switches that are in strange places, and it is rather easy to forget the lights on in the bathrooms and back closets. My solution for the problem was to grab some fancy switches that have motion sensors and automatically turn off after a certain period of time.

For about $16 I grabbed a motion sensor switch that automatically turns off on a variable timer.  I would have been able to install the switch in about 3 minutes if I didn’t have to track down all of the mislabel circuit breakers in my apartment. I’m a little concerned that whoever wired my apartment simply used “lites” four different places in the breaker list.  It doesn’t exactly bestow great confidence in how the rest of the apartment is wired.

Once I had the cover off the original switch box I found some more 1970′s awesomeness. They had simply left the ground wire dangling in the box and jumper in the switch into place with some outlets.  It isn’t anything to be scared of, but the apartment could use a little updating.  Regardless the ground is now being properly utilized, and the switch isn’t just jumpered into place.

We will see how well it works, and if I like it before I do any more.  There really is no point for me to update something I’ll have to undo someday.  Also, we face the problem that most of our switches face the opposite direction of the rooms that they are actually controlling. Whoever wired my apartment had the revolutionary idea of being able to control lights before you actually enter the room.  Motion sensor switches require heat variations in the room to operate, and if they don’t have a direct line of sight they won’t work.

Update:

I moved the switch from my computer room to the bathroom after buying the proper faceplate.

Originally the layout of the switch was something like this.

Light Switch Outlet

Diagram from http://www.indepthinfo.com/

Old Wall Switch

Old Wall Switch Faceplate Removed

Old Wiring

New Wiring Motion-Sensor Switch

Setting up the timer and light sensitivity

Finished Motion Sensor Light Switch

Round Two

Old Double Wall Switch

Stuck Faceplate

If painted over make sure to gently cut around the edges of the switches or you could cause damage the paint prying the switches off the wall.

Old Switch Removed: Discovered that there is no accessable ground wire...

New Motion Sensor Switch Installed

Troubleshooting:

After getting it wired up I turned the circuit breaker back on and found that my CFL bulbs flickered and did not want to stay on.  The bulbs did not flicker in the computer room what is different?  So after a short search I noticed that I had a single incandescent bulb in the fixture in the computer room.  I moved the incandescent bulb into the bathroom sure enough all the lights now function properly.  Like most electronics you get what you pay for.  Apparently the particular motion sensor switch I bought does not do well with certain CFL bulbs (6105M-PT). After reading some forums I found it is best to avoid Cooper Wiring Devices model 6109 and 6105.

The 6119 model should work better with CFL bulbs.

My work around: Currently I’m just using a single 40W incandescent bulb with two CFL bulbs and it works just fine.  It is possible that it is not working because it is not grounded properly, but I really don’t think that is the problem. I might take it back apart and dig around to see if there is a ground wire stuffed in the back somewhere. Even if I find one I do not think it will allow me to run CFL bulbs.

Even though I have to run a 40W bulb it will still save power because the light will not be left on for 8 hours at a time.