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Another well-known rift zone.
And, some pertinent data:
"A preliminary estimate of the current rate of CO2 gas emission at Mammoth Mountain is 1,300 tons per day. Similar rates of CO2 emission have been measured from the craters of Mt. St. Helens (Washington) and Kilauea (Hawaii) volcanoes during periods of low-level eruptive activity. Past eruptions at Mammoth Mountain, such as the phreatic (steam-blast) eruptions that occurred about 600 years ago on the volcanoÕs north flank, may have been accompanied by CO2 emissions. Scientists think that the current episode of high CO2 emission is the first large-scale release of the gas on the mountain for at least 250 years, because the oldest trees in the active tree-kill areas are about that age."
And, please note: they refer to this as similar to other volcanoes during "periods of low-level eruptive activity".
The levels aren't always low.
Some bright lad or lass at the USGS has probably added all the worldwide volcanic emissions up. Hopefully, we'll find her/his work. Otherwise, we'll keep digging.
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And, folks, these measurements are just from the summit, not the rift zone, of just one of the volcanoes.
The excerpt:
"Résumé / Abstract
We report a CO2 emission rate of 8500 metric tons per day (t d-1) for the summit of Kīlauea Volcano, several times larger than previous estimates. It is based on three sets of measurements over 4 years of synchronous SO22/SO22/SO2 for the traverse is representative of the global ratio for summit emissions. The summit CO2 emission rate is nearly constant, despite large temporal variations in summit CO2/SO2 and SO2 emission rates. Summit CO22 output (∼9000 t d-1). The bulk CO2content of primary magma determined from CO2 emission and magma supply rate data is ∼0.70 wt %. Most of the CO2 is present as exsolved vapor at summit reservoir depths, making the primary magma strongly buoyant. Turbulent mixing with resident reservoir magma, however, prevents frequent eruptions of buoyant primary magma in the summit region. CO2 emissions confirm that the magma supply enters the edifice through the summit reservoir. A persistent several hundred parts per million CO222 emission rate is an effective proxy for the magma supply rate. Both scrubbing of SO2 and solubility controls on CO2 and S in basaltic melt cause high CO2/SO2 in summit emissions and spatially uncorrelated distributions of CO2 and SO2 in the summit plume." emission rates and volcanic CO emissions comprise most of Kīlauea's total CO anomaly arises from the entry of magma into the summit reservoir beneath a square kilometer area east of Halemaumau pit crater. Since most of the CO in primary magma is degassed in the summit, the summit CO concentration ratios for the summit correlation spectrometer (COSPEC) traverse. Volcanic COFolks, that's 8,500 tons per day of Carbon Dioxide. And, only at the summit - they didn't, couldn't, measure all the seepage over the entire rift zone - which is extensive. Oh, and this is just one volcano.
More will follow. Hopefully of some interest.
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So, y'all get the shotgun.
In any case, we had earlier suggested that natural processes, primarily volcanism, render similar pollutants generated by coal use inconsequential - not that we shouldn't responsibly tend to them, especially since they might have material value for us.
As a start, we submit the attached:
Talk about pimples on an elephant's butt.
Should the link not open, there is a graph from the USGS which - if we read it correctly - illustrates that just one vent on just one of Hawaii's volcanoes sends more than 2,000 tons per day of SO2 into the atmosphere.
Actually, it might be one complete rift zone - but, still.
One island, one volcano, one rift zone.
Hang on while we compile some other data, data that we can compare to measured emissions from power plants.
And, we will be checking on data from other active areas - such as Iceland and the Phillipines.
As we start adding the numbers up, we believe that all the hyperventilation over all the coal-fired power plants' puffs from a toke on a Camel or Kool - relative to one volcano's burning up a whole Marsh-Wheeling Stogie - will begin to appear humorous. Not that we shouldn't be doing what we can.
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We might have sent this article along earlier, but can find no record we did so. It's a somewhat lengthy dissertation, but, we think, well worth the read. We trust the link will function.
A brief, but pertinent, excerpt:
"It isn't only in the U.S. where the environmental implications of coal gasification are a concern. Shenhua's Zhang says the challenge of operating coal-fed facilities in a clean and resource-efficient manner is a top priority for his company. "As long as seven years ago, when I first joined Shenhua and we were planning the first direct liquefaction plant, we challenged ourselves to make a zero-discharge facility," he recalls. "We are very close to zero emissions now."
Shenhua is building its first methanol-to-olefins plant in the inland province of Ningxia, and construction of that project is about one-third completed, Zhang says. Shenhua is building another methanol-to-olefins complex at its coal mines near Baotou in Inner Mongolia that is scheduled to start coming on line at the end of the year. A more advanced, almost completed project is a coal-to-liquid fuels facility that Shenhua is building at its coal mines near the city of Ordos in Inner Mongolia. The plant makes use of a process developed by Shenhua that allows the direct liquefaction of coal into fuels without having to first gasify the coal."
Direct liquefaction might very well minimize the generation of pollutants we have to feed to the algae - presuming you to have seen our earlier dispatches on that topic.
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Perhaps the important excerpt:
"The microalgal research and development effort couples the use of microalgae for biofuels production with environmental bioremediation. Microalgae naturally remove and recycle nutrients (such as nitrogen and phosphorous) from water and wastewater and carbon dioxide from flue-gases emitted from fossil fuel-fired power plants, providing an added environmental benefit. The integration of wastewater bioremediation and carbon sequestration with biofuel production in a novel field-scale bioreactor has been demonstrated."
No emphases added - the entire passage is of direct consequence, as you realize if you've been following our correspondence on the potential for employment of algal bio-reactors, to not only clean up the gaseous/aqueous effluents from coal-to-liquids plants, but to provide additional feedstock for those CTL plants, as well.
If you wish to follow up, as we think, of course, you should, the link will lead you to appropriate contact info.
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