Fossil fuels, Greenhouse gas emissions, Radiocarbon dating

Fossil Fuel Emissions Messing Up Radiocarbon Dating, Making The World Appear Older

Repost from Think Progress

Fossil Fuel Emissions Are About To Throw Carbon Dating All Out Of Whack

 By Ari Phillips Jul 22, 2015 11:15am
CREDIT: flickr/Jeffrey

Those concerned with climate change spend a lot of time arguing that it’s not just an environmental problem, but also an economic, human rights, national security, and even mental health issue. Now a new study has found that greenhouse gas emissions could impact a range of unlikely fields due to their effect on radiocarbon dating, a much-heralded scientific method used to determine the age of objects containing organic material.

The study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that emissions from fossil fuels are artificially raising the carbon age of the atmosphere, which makes objects today seem much older than they are when scrutinized by a radiocarbon dater. This change in the ability to date objects could impact measurements commonly taken in a broad range of endeavors, including archaeology, forgery detection, forensics, earth science, and physiology.

For instance, the study suggests that by 2050 — just 35 years from now — new clothes could have the same radiocarbon date as something worn during the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

We already knew fossil fuel emissions were messing with our future, but now they might be messing with our future’s history. This is happening because carbon dating measures the percentage of carbon-14 versus non-radioactive carbon (C) found in an object to determine how long it has been around. Fossil fuels like coal and oil have been around for so long — millions of years — that all of their carbon-14, which has a half life of 5,730 years, is already decayed and gone. A half life is the period of time that it takes half a sample to decay.

As fossil fuel emissions mix into the atmosphere, they mix up the atmosphere’s carbon-14 balance by flooding it with non-radioactive carbon.

The carbon-14 in the atmosphere is absorbed by plants through photosynthesis, and when animals consume the plants they ingest it. So carbon-14 is found in all organic matter and has been used to figure out the age of thousands of artifacts since it first came into popular use in the 1940s and ’50s. Things that can be carbon dated include wood, bone, leather, hair, pottery, iron, ice cores and a host of other objects. The Dead Sea Scrolls, Stonehenge, and Ötzi the Iceman, a famous 5,500 year old mummy, were all carbon dated.

This is not the first time in modern history that carbon-14 levels have shifted. After a decrease in concentration that coincided with the Industrial Revolution, nuclear weapons testing caused a sharp rise in the middle of the 20th Century. Since then, observations show carbon-14 levels have been dropping, and they are now approaching a pre-industrial ratio, according to the press release for the study.

Carbon dating has suffered from artificial manipulation due to human impacts since it was discovered; not only from fossil fuel burning and nuclear detonations, but also agricultural chemicals that contaminate dating. It is known to be a form of science with a large margin of error. The issue now is just how large that error could become over a short amount of time.

As Gizmag reports, this variability has made it so that anything within 300 years of 1950 is considered modern according to radiocarbon dating protocol. However, if this study is correct, that 300-year margin of error could exceed 2,000 years by the end of the century.

“If we are adding non-radioactive carbon and that’s what’s happening with fossil fuels, we get this dilution effect,” Heather D. Graven, a physicist at the Imperial College London and author of the study, told the BBC.

Graven said that at current rates of fossil fuel emissions, increases in non-radioactive carbon could start to impact carbon dating by 2020. She also said there is still time to curtail this effect.

“If we reduce emissions rapidly we might stay around a carbon age of 100 years in the atmosphere, but if we strongly increase emissions we could get to an age of 1,000 years by 2050 and around 2,000 years by 2100,” she said. “If we reduced fossil fuel emissions, it would be good news for radiocarbon dating.”

So, add carbon dating to the list of reasons to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), California Air Resources Board (CARB), California Energy Commission, Clean Air Act, Environmental Impacts, Environmental justice, Hazardous waste dumps, Legal action, Public Health, Public Safety

Pittsburg CA: Suit claims EPA failed to investigate

Repost from the Contra Costa Times

Pittsburg: Suit claims EPA failed to investigate complaints of environmental discrimination

By Bay City News Service, 07/21/2015 09:43:40 AM PDT

PITTSBURG – A consortium of environmental groups sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to investigate complaints of discrimination in the placement of power plants or hazardous waste dumps in various locations across the country, including two power plants in Pittsburg.

The EPA has 180 days to respond to the complaints, but according to the suit, which was filed on July 15, the federal regulator has not responded to the complaints in 10 to 20 years in some cases.

The suit includes allegations about facilities in Michigan, Texas, New Mexico, Alabama and California.

In Pittsburg, the suit alleges that the local regulatory agencies — the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the California Air Resources Board, and the California Energy Commission — discriminated against residents by locating two power plants in an already environmentally over-burdened area, according to Marianne Engelman Lado, a lawyer with Earthjustice, which is representing the plaintiffs.

“This is in a community where people have high rates of asthma or cancer and they were concerned that these plants would add to that,” Engelman Lado said.

Californians for Renewable Energy, or CARE, filed a complaint with the EPA’s Office of Civil Rights in April 2000 charging the local agencies discriminated against the predominantly nonwhite and low-income residents by failing to consider the additional environmental burden of the two new plants, the complaint alleges.

Permitting for the plants, the Los Medanos Energy Center LLC and Delta Energy Center, continued and the plants were approved and went online in 2001 and 2002, respectively, according to the complaint. The EPA accepted the complaint in December 2001 but has yet to conduct an investigation into the allegations, despite attempts in 2006 and 2009 by CARE to prompt the federal agency to respond, the complaint alleges.

In June 2002, the EPA classified Los Medanos Energy Center as being in “significant violation” of the Clean Air Act and over the last five years the facility has had to pay over $3,000 in fines for violating the act, according to the complaint.

In the meantime, residents have been suffering the consequences, Engelman Lado said.

“The plants are still standing and they’re polluting,” she said. “They’re emitting toxins and the community is living with that everyday.”

Engelman Lado said it’s clear the EPA has violated the law, and she’s hoping the lawsuit will result in the EPA completing their investigation.

Engelman Lado added she’s confident that when the EPA does complete the investigation, it will make findings of discrimination.

“We would hope, whether through a court order or by sitting down at the table, we could bring resources to bear to say, ‘What can we do to help these communities who are suffering from a lack of infrastructure or resources,'” she said.

That could take the form of more monitoring, infrastructure to mitigate some of the negative impacts of the power plants, or more extensive buffers between the community and the plants.

A representative from the EPA did not return a request for comment.

Bakken Crude, Clean-up, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, Oil spill, Rivers, Soil contamination, Spill prevention and response, Water contamination

CSX Provides Update on W.Va. Oil Train Derailment Cleanup

Repost from ABC News

CSX Provides Update on W.Va. Oil Train Derailment Cleanup

By JOHN RABY Associated Press, Jul 21, 2015, 7:51 PM ET

GLEN FERRIS, W.Va. – CSX is continuing to closely monitor the environmental impact of a fiery oil-train derailment in southern West Virginia, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.The company held a public informational meeting that drew a sparse turnout Tuesday evening at the Glen Ferris Inn.

On Feb. 16, 27 cars of a CSX train’s 109 cars derailed during a snowstorm in Mount Carbon. Twenty of the cars leaked oil, some of which burned or was released into the ground.

Under a March consent order with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the railroad agreed to a long-term plan for cleaning up and restoring the area around the derailment.

“It’s important for the community to know that we said we would be here,” CSX spokeswoman Melanie Cost said. “This is part of that process. We want to keep the open dialogue for them.”

Donna Shabdue lives near the derailment site and was forced to evacuate her home for more than a day. She showed up to the meeting to voice her concerns about local emergency response and pleaded for quickly informing the public about future incidents.

“They need to have a plan,” she said. “We didn’t know what to do. There needs to be a siren somewhere go off to evacuate. We didn’t know what to do. I just want out of there safely.”

The train was carrying 3 million gallons of Bakken crude and headed to Yorktown, Virginia. In recent years, trains hauling crude from the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana have been involved in fiery derailments in six states.

The Federal Railroad Administration is investigating the West Virginia accident, which shot fireballs into the sky, burned down a nearby house and caused fires on the ground that smoldered for days.

The cause of the derailment hasn’t been released. Speed had previously been ruled out as a factor. The FRA has said the train was going 33 mph at the time of the crash. The speed limit was 50 mph.

CSX said more than 181,000 gallons of crude oil was recovered after the accident. About 10,000 tons of soil has been removed and shipped for disposal. Additional soil removal is planned next to the Kanawha River and a tributary at the derailment site.

Air, water and soil sampling continues. The water monitoring is at five locations along the river, including a drinking water intake, because of the occasional presence of oil sheens. CSX said the local drinking water supply has been unaffected by the spill.

Oil-absorbing booms were attached to a metal wall more than 410 feet long in the river as an additional containment measure. The wall will eventually be taken down once the sheens are no longer detected, Cost said.

Cost declined to disclose how much the company has spent on the cleanup.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Train speed

Officials: Oil train didn’t speed before Montana derailment

Repost from Yahoo News (AP)

Officials: Oil train didn’t speed before Montana derailment

By Matthew Brown, July 20, 2015

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A train that derailed and spilled 35,000 gallons of oil in northeastern Montana was traveling within authorized speed limits, federal officials said Monday as they continued to probe the accident’s cause.

The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway train loaded with crude from North Dakota was traveling 44 mph before Thursday’s wreck, U.S. Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Matthew Lehner said.

Officials have said the maximum authorized speed in the area is 45 mph.

Twenty-two cars on the BNSF train derailed near the small town of Culbertson. Lehner said the tank cars were a model known as the “1232,”which is built under a 2011 industry standard intended to be more crash-resistant than earlier designs.

But several recent oil train crashes, including some that caught fire, also involved 1232s, and federal officials said in May that the older cars must be phased out. The oil industry has challenged the timeline for the phase-out in federal court.

The stretch of track where last week’s derailment occurred is inspected at least four times a week, said Matt Jones, a spokesman for the Fort Worth, Texas-based company. Jones did not immediately respond to a request for details on the latest inspection.

Derailed oil tanker cars lie off track near Culbertson, …
Derailed oil tanker cars lie off track near Culbertson, Mont., Friday, July 17, 2015. The tank cars were hauling fuel from North Dakota and derailed Thursday in rural northeastern Montana, authorities said. (AP Photo/Richard Peterson)

The accident triggered a temporary evacuation of nearby homes and a camp for oil-field workers.

No one was hurt, and no fire or explosion occurred. But oil leaked from four of the cars. Officials said the spill was quickly contained, and there was no immediate evidence that any crude reached a waterway.

Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Michael Cole said Monday the train was bound for the Cherry Point refinery, operated by oil company BP near Ferndale, Washington. The agency had said previously that the shipment was headed to a refinery in Anacortes, Washington.

The spill marked the latest in a series of wrecks across the U.S. and Canada that have highlighted the safety risks of moving crude by rail.

In recent years, trains hauling crude from the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana have been involved in fiery derailments in six states. In 2013, a runaway train hauling crude from the Bakken derailed and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, incinerating much of its downtown and killing 47 people.

North Dakota regulators in April began requiring oil producers to treat their crude before it can be loaded onto rail cars, to reduce the concentration of volatile gases that can trigger an explosion. Statoil, which was shipping the oil involved in last week’s crash, was in compliance with the new regulations, company spokesman Peter Symons said.

Cleanup work along the BNSF line near Culbertson continued Monday, said Daniel Kenney, an enforcement specialist with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.

BNSF has been asked to sample underground water supplies in the vicinity of the crash as a precaution, Kenney said. For most spills, the state expects cleanup work to be completed and a final report submitted to regulators within 90 says, Kenney said. He added that might not be the case with Thursday’s derailment given the large volume of oil spilled.

Speed restrictions put in place following the derailment were lifted Monday on nearby U.S. Highway 2, the region’s main artery.

For safe and healthy communities…