CO2 Pipeline Explosion Turned Mississippi Town Into "A Zombie Movie"

[hatrack]

In February of last year, a CO2 pipeline exploded, engulfing Satartia, Mississippi in a noxious green fog that left residents confused, convulsing, foaming at the mouth and even unconscious — an episode that augurs danger for what could be a coming wave of new CO2 pipelines across the country, a 19-month investigation by HuffPost and the Climate Investigations Center reveals. The reporting comes as the oil and gas industry is seeking to reinvent themselves, or at least their public image, through massive carbon capture and storage (CCS) investments that would include a whole new network of pipelines.

If and when these pipes leak, they will send clouds of CO2 (and in this specific case, poisonous hydrogen sulfide, which gave the cloud its green hue, rotten egg smell and particularly noxious respiratory impacts) into the surrounding environment, where it will displace the lighter air at ground level and threaten to cause “air hunger” and asphyxiate every oxygen-breathing organism incapable of escaping the area — made harder by the fact that gas- and diesel-powered cars also need oxygen to work.

‘We got lucky’

“It was almost like something you’d see in a zombie movie, they were just walking in circles” Sheriff’s Officer Terry Gann told Huffpost, while survivor Hugh Martin said that the “only thing I been through worse than this was the gas chamber when I was in the Army training for Desert Storm, and that was cyanide gas.”

Bad as that may sound though, the situation could have been significantly worse, as they actually “got lucky,” as Yazoo County Emergency Management Agency director Jack Willingham explained. “If the wind blew the other way, if it’d been later when people were sleeping, we would have had deaths.”

EDIT

https://nexusmedianews.com/top_story/co2/

[Piratedog]

1. Um...for carbon dioxide???

That doesn’t sound right.

[Piratedog]

2. I read a separate article--sure enough. Never knew about CO2 pipelines.

That’s pretty odd. Really seems weird that a leak outside would create havoc since it’s CO2.

[hatrack]

3. If you want to see what sudden CO2 releases can do, check out the Lake Nyos disaster

On 21 August 1986, a limnic eruption at Lake Nyos in northwestern Cameroon killed 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock.[1]

The eruption triggered the sudden release of about 100,000–300,000 tons (1.6 million tons, according to some sources) of carbon dioxide (CO2).[2][3] The gas cloud initially rose at nearly 100 kilometres per hour (62 mph; 28 m/s) and then, being heavier than air, descended onto nearby villages, displacing all the air and suffocating people and livestock within 25 kilometres (16 mi) of the lake.[4][5]

A degassing system has since been installed at the lake, with the aim of reducing the concentration of CO2 in the waters and therefore the risk of further eruptions.

EDIT

Since carbon dioxide is 1.5 times the density of air, the cloud hugged the ground and moved down the valleys, where there were various villages. The mass was about 50 metres (160 ft) thick, and travelled downward at 20–50 kilometres per hour (12–31 mph; 5.6–13.9 m/s). For roughly 23 kilometres (14 mi), the gas cloud was concentrated enough to suffocate many people in their sleep in the villages of Nyos, Kam, Cha, and Subum.[4] About 4,000 inhabitants fled the area, and many of these developed respiratory problems, lesions, and paralysis as a result of the gas cloud.[14]

It is a possibility that other volcanic gases were released along with the CO2, as some survivors reported a smell of gunpowder or rotten eggs which indicates that sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide were present at concentrations above their odour thresholds. However, CO2 was the only gas detected in samples of lake water, suggesting that this was the predominant gas released and as such the main cause of the incident.[14]

EDIT

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos_disaster

[getagrip_already]

4. CO2 will kill at the right concentrations......

Brewery workers have been found dead in vats they entered to clean before the gas was vented.

Just because its common, doesn't mean it can't be lethal.

[Piratedog]

5. Certainly an inside leak is catastrophic. Never thought about an outside leak being so bad