You will love the last line.

[Edgar J Winter]

Save the planet....This is a technical article but Prof Plimer is so good.
It does no harm to read and gain knowledge!
On averting a Lake Nyos-style catastrophic gas explosion
Ian Plimer <https://www.spectator.com.au/author/ian-plimer/>

Getty Images
Ian Plimer <https://www.spectator.com.au/author/ian-plimer/>
11 May 2024
The Great Artesian Basin of Queensland, New South Wales, the Northern
Territory and South Australia is the largest groundwater basin in Australia
and one of the largest in the world. One aquifer, the Precipice Sandstone,
is the source of artesian water, gas and oil and older sedimentary rock
units in the Basin which produce coal and coal seam gas.
Current recharge of water is from the northern and eastern edges of the
Basin and water moves laterally in the aquifer up to 200 metres per day. A
recent injection of 20 gigalitres of treated water from coal seam gas
production into the Precipice Sandstone had pressure responses that
propagated 100 km in the aquifer. Water in the far western part of the Basin
is more than 2 million years old whereas in the far east of the Basin, it is
only decades old. Water at depth is up to 130°C and hot artesian water rises
to the surface under its own pressure.
In some areas where water has been exploited for a long time, the pressure
has decreased and deep water needs to be pumped to the surface. Artesian
water is alkaline, varies from fresh to brackish and is used for stock and
irrigation and, in some towns, is used for human consumption. Some Outback
towns such as Lightning Ridge and Moree have artesian water thermal springs
called bore baths. Artesian water contains methane and rotten egg gas and
water from some bores pongs so much that it would kill a dead camel.
Coal-fired power stations produce carbon dioxide as an exhaust gas. Carbon
dioxide can be liquefied at low temperature and high pressure which requires
energy from a coal-fired power station. There is a proposal to inject
330,000 tonnes of liquid carbon dioxide from a Queensland coal-fired power
station into the Precipice Sandstone of the Great Artesian Basin at a depth
of 2.3 kilometres. At that depth, the liquid carbon dioxide could be at 600
times atmospheric pressure and up to 130°C and hence could flash, expand up
to 300 times its volume and explosively ascend to the surface.
Explosive volcanic eruptions are driven by the sudden expansion of a
water-carbon dioxide mixture and carbon dioxide can be explosively or
passively released from modern or extinct volcanoes where it can be
exploited for the food and beverage industry, such as at Mount Gambier in
South Australia. In areas of crustal extension, thermal baths rich in carbon
dioxide often precipitate calcium carbonate, such as at Pamukkale in Turkey.
Crustal compression of rock sequences to form mountain ranges results in the
degassing of rocks and bicarbonate mineral springs with bubbles of carbon
dioxide are ubiquitous. These are the source of some natural sparkling
mineral water. In nature, liquid carbon dioxide occurs in microscopic fluid
inclusions which make quartz milky white and liquid carbon dioxide is
released as droplets in active submarine tectonic areas, which you will find
at the Okinawa Trough or the Mariana Arc.
In many parts of the world, there are gas volcanoes that are the host for
gold, copper-gold and copper-gold-uranium mineral deposits. The behaviour of
carbon dioxide in geological processes and carbon dioxide at depth is well
studied.
The risk of a gas explosion by injection of liquid carbon dioxide from
coal-fired power stations into the Precipice Sandstone is real yet has not
been evaluated in either the scientific literature and government reports on
the Great Artesian Basin or by the company that proposes liquid carbon
dioxide injection.
Disconformities, unconformities, sedimentary rock bedding, joints, faults
and abandoned wells are conduits for fluids from the Precipice Sandstone to
the surface in the western part of the Great Artesian Basin as shown by more
than 5,000 mound springs that tap artesian waters from depths of up to 3,000
metres. Such conduits could equally well be conduits for liquid carbon
dioxide which would open existing rock weaknesses to the surface.
The same subsurface conditions exist in the eastern part of the Great
Artesian Basin where it is proposed to inject liquid carbon dioxide into the
aquifer. A phase change from liquid to gaseous carbon dioxide in dilation
zones would result in the rapid expansion and cooling of gaseous carbon
dioxide during catastrophic explosive ascent from the aquifer to form a cold
gas volcano.
It is not suggested that injection of liquid carbon dioxide could stimulate
volcanism or a magmatic gas explosion. Injection and residence of liquid
carbon dioxide in the Precipice Sandstone would not only make artesian
waters acid but could initiate a catastrophic gas explosion and associated
gas volcano by phase change or gas expansion-induced fracturing. This is not
far-fetched speculation. It has happened before.
The best-known example is that of Lake Nyos in Cameroon. On a still evening
on 21 August 1986, the release of 100,000 to 300,000 tonnes of gaseous
carbon dioxide from deep below the Lake Nyos caldera at a velocity of over
100 kilometres per hour displaced air for a radius of 25 kilometres around
the exhalation vent and killed 1,746 humans, 3,500 livestock and countless
wildlife. The trigger for the catastrophic release of carbon dioxide at Lake
Nyos is unknown.
Because carbon dioxide is denser than air, it flowed downslope and displaced
air in valleys and low-lying areas with the resultant asphyxiation of
animals. Lake Nyos is now vented of carbon dioxide from drill holes to
prevent any future sudden explosive catastrophic releases. Carbon dioxide
venting into the atmosphere also now takes place in the far larger Lake Kivu
in Rwanda.
The risk of storing liquid (or even high pressure gaseous) carbon dioxide in
a deep aquifer is that there could be a repetition of the Lake Nyos disaster
with settlements, stock and wildlife in western Queensland blanketed by a
dense gaseous carbon dioxide cloud that would displace air and create
asphyxiation.
There is a simple solution. Don't liquefy and bury plant food. Feed trees,
grasslands and crops by venting carbon dioxide into the air from coal-fired
power stations to green the planet. Save electricity that would have been
used to cool and compress carbon dioxide.
There is no evidence that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere drives
global warming. Only evidence to the contrary. There has been a decrease in
atmospheric carbon dioxide from 0.7 per cent during the Cambrian explosion
of life 520 million years ago to the present level of 0.04 per cent by
natural sequestration into life, coral reefs, lime-rich and carbonaceous
sediments, coal, oil and gas. If this trend continues, when carbon dioxide
reaches 0.02 per cent, all plant life will die. Nasa satellites show that
the planet has greened because of the slight increase in atmospheric carbon
dioxide over the last few decades.
Feed plants, green the planet by burning more coal, oil and gas and don't
starve vegans. You know it's common sense.

Pity there is no artesian basin beneath Canberra.


The Wizard of Woombye.



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