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Re. outgassing tragedy
The lake you were thinking of was Lake Nyos (in Cameroon) which
in 1986 released over 80 million cubic metres of CO2 and killed
over 1,700 people along with 3,500 livestock (and left many more
of each suffering respiratory problems).
With regard to my original points, the "outgassing catastrophe"
risk is mainly #2 as attempting to force too much into the reservoir
would result in a sudden explosive failure in the operation at or
near the surface whereas the effects of #1 are much more likely to
be much deeper and slower (though they could be devastating in the
longer term).
My concern with #1 is that they are a blatant gamble: they cannot
know exactly *how* the fracturing will occur as they cannot examine
the surrounding/overlying rock in sufficient detail. This means
that it is yet another "suck it and see" experiment where the risk
outweighs the potential benefit.
I didn't mean to pounce on your simplification (via point #3) but
that concept is *exactly* how this sort of scheme is being sold
and Joe Public will go along with it as "it sounds a sensible
thing to do".
> I imagine that there is a school of thought that says most of our
> actions should be on the consumption reduction (and therefore CO2
> emission reduction) side, and let earth's ecological systems
> assimilate the added CO2 in it's own good time.
As always, I can only speak for myself here so the following is
simply one person's opinion. I'm not totally against the idea of
"helping" the natural processes to process the CO2 eventually but
*am* 100% against any "assistance" projects starting off before
we have stopped spewing ever-increasing amounts of CO2 (et al) into
the atmosphere. Anything else would not only dilute the attack of
strategies to reduce CO2 emissions but would actively encourage the
maintenance of the "business as usual" approach (with an added helping
of "give us your money" conmen taking away the already constrained funds
available for the environment).
> Do you believe all geoengineering is unwarranted here?
In the short term, the above means that I am against all artificial
sequestration projects. (I inserted the word "artificial" as replanting
the forests that we've removed would technically be a "sequestration
project" and I am not against that!)
In the longer term, my doubts over the ability for generic humanity
to change its nature suggest that the "short-term" will simply continue
until it is too late.
With regard to other "geoengineering", it would depend on what or how
you classify things as, to a pedant, the mere existence of a human
population is a geoengineering activity: we change the planet to some
extent by every adaptation to events and every exploitation of resources
that we make.
> Is it because of unintended side effects solely, eco-morality,
> or other underpinning ideas, data, and beliefs?
Probably "all of the above". :-)
The "unintended side-effects" reason takes precedence on many of the
current rash of "let's do it" projects. I'm not sure quite what you
mean by "eco-morality" but if it includes anti-dominionism (i.e., not
putting the desires of a few humans over the effect on the rest of
the world) then yes, that comes into it. "Underpinning ideas & data"
come into play with things like the OP and other geology (and the
human interactions therewith) issues. Other beliefs? Possibly but not
in a conscious way (I'm not an adherent of any particular religion,
not a party-line follower for any political organisation, not sure
what else you would include under that heading?).
So yes, I can support my opinions but, ultimately, (as with every other
poster here), it is the opinion that steers my writing (or rambling as
posts like this tend to turn out ...).
(And thank you for your friendly debate too! :hi: )
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