Stuff You Should Know - How Carbon Capture and Storage Works

Episode Date: June 11, 2009

Carbon capture and storage is a way to filter excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it. Tune in as Josh and Chuck discuss current methods of carbon capture and storage -- and how feasible they are -- in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from House StuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always is the lovely Chuck Bryant staring at our new jute rug hanging from our new wall. What's up, Chuck? We must be like going places. We have a jute rug hanging from the wall. I feel silly because I called it Berber. That's okay. I'm over here feeling stupid. They're both from the same area. Oh, are they? Of the world. They better be because if we start giving them a snail, that's going to be so angry. I know. The cool thing is, is when we're corrected, though, we are literally corrected, or I'm sorry, we're corrected by literal experts. Yeah, sure. Have you noticed? Yeah, true. Yeah, so many times.

Like it would be like a jute rug manufacturer or somebody with a PhD in jute rug studies who will email us about that. Or Henry Jute himself. Right. The father of jute ruggery. Right. Yeah. So other than the whole Berber jute thing, how are you feeling? Oh, I'm a little tired, but I'm fine. Are you tired? Yeah. Chuck, you should look into energy drinks. I just drank one and I'm like, yeah, I'm not a fan. I don't like the taste. No, no. Good enough. You want to move on? Sure. Let's do that. What's funny is that came out as like seven seconds and it really lasted, what, like four minutes? Yeah, if people only knew. Thanks to the wonder of yeti. Yeah, so Chuck, you may have noticed, and I know you did, because that person we used to relay

information to us, between the two of us, because we can't stand one another really, told me that you told her that you already knew this. You following me so far? No. I don't think anyone else is either. Okay, we already did this one. Yeah, we should go ahead and say that. Yeah. This is about carbon capture and storage. And it seemed oddly familiar when I was researching. And that's because we did in fact do this last July, but it was one of our little baby podcasts when we first started. Woof. And it was like five to seven minutes long, something like that. And it just really didn't do this topic justice. And I got to tell you, hot dog, carbon capture and storage is cool enough and important enough to do twice. Yeah. And don't worry, folks,

we're not going to start rehashing things. We have plenty of topics we are yet to cover, but we just want to do this because we're on a little green, sweet kick. Exactly. Yeah. And plus, you know, the first one just didn't quite do it. Usually when we do a podcast, it stays done, right? Yeah, agreed. This one didn't quite stay done. It was still squirming. We hadn't put the nail gun to the back of the head yet. So we're going to do that here. Part due. Yeah. So Chuck, this one is laden with stats. I was reading this article. I thought Chuck is going to go crazy for this one. Give me the first stat, buddy. Let's talk about CO2 and the greenhouse effect, right? Let's do. Okay. So we do have this layer of carbon dioxide

that allows sunlight to pass through and some to stay. It keeps bouncing back and forth, which we need to a certain degree or else trees wouldn't grow. Children wouldn't skip and play to support it for photosynthesis. Right. So we do need it. What would happen if we didn't have this, this greenhouse layer surrounding the earth like a warm blanket? Josh, if we had no greenhouse effect, buddy, our planet would be about minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit, which is minus 30 degrees Celsius for our friends who don't use the imperial system. Yep. So it would be a frozen planet basically. Yeah. Oh yeah. We wouldn't be around. I'll tell you that. So we want the greenhouse effect. We want this stuff to come through and to warm our earth. The problem is, is when enough

of it doesn't get bounced back into outer space, then it gets a little too warm because the other the other direction, we don't have a stat on that. But as you can tell, summers are getting a little hotter and I'm sweating a lot more. We do have a stat on that. As far as it getting hotter. Oh, okay. Well, emissions, I'm sorry, emissions increasing. I kind of bent that one a little bit. Yeah. But from 1970 to 2004, the greenhouse gas emissions have increased 70% over that 34 year period. Right. And there's actually plenty of different greenhouse gases. You've got like nitrous oxide, methane, even water vapor is technically a greenhouse gas when it's up there. So all this stuff kind of combining traps in the sun's heat. But worst among them, as far as what we're doing

to contribute, which is called anthropogenic contribution, is carbon dioxide because between that same period, would you say 1970 to 2004, our carbon dioxide emissions grew 80%. Yeah, that's that's significant. Yeah, close to doubling. That's that's a lot. Right. And you remember the chlorohydrofluorocarbons, I think is what they were called? Yes. The CFCs. Yeah, chlorofluorocarbons. And they were in aerosol sprays. And like everybody's like, Oh, God, you know, it's everything's going to end and that we just got rid of aerosols. Sure. Kind of. We need to figure out a way to do that with carbon dioxide emissions, too. Well, we kind of are. Yeah. And what is it? Well, that's what we're talking about again,

which is carbon capture. And more importantly, storage, because capturing carbon, I mean, none of it's easy, but what you do with it is what's important. Sure. Yeah. I mean, we can't just like, yeah, put it in the backyard. Sure. Right. We can put it very deep in the backyard. You could. Nice. We'll get to that. Nice for shadowing. So let's talk about trapping carbon dioxide first. The capture part of carbon capture and storage, which if you want to look green, savvy in front of your friends, just toss out CCS. Sure. And they will be wild. Yeah. We've actually been doing this for a while, Josh. What, you and I? The year at least. Yeah. No, capturing carbon. Oh, yeah. We've been doing that for a while because the oil and gas industries

do that. They've been doing that for decades to enhance oil and gas recovery. Right. Because, you know, when you when you tap in an oil reserve and all the deposit in the earth, it's actually, there's a ton of gases holding it down. It's pressurized, actually. Right. So the stuff is, it comes out really easily. But as the gases that are holding this, they're pressurizing this underground cavern escape into the atmosphere, it becomes harder and harder to get the oil out. So they figured out that if you pump CO2 into these half depleted deposits, it repressurizes it and it makes the oil easier to get out. Right. So out of that becomes a more environmentally friendly use, which is capturing carbon for Mother Earth. Right. And even more.

So since we're already or since the oil companies are already using pressurized CO2 for enhanced oil recovery, there's already a network, a system of pipelines and stuff infrastructure. Infrastructure. Thank you, Chuck. Wow. I love that word infrastructure. But that's that's I do too. It's very comforting. It is. Yeah. It sounds like somebody's in charge. It does. So we're I'm getting ahead of myself. That's the that's part of the storage. Right. Let's keep talking about capture. Josh, there are three main steps to CCS and that is the trapping of the carbon, the separating of the CO2 from other gases and then transporting it to a place where you can store it away from the atmosphere. Right. And actually, strangely enough, there's

three methods that we've come up with for doing this rule of threes. Right. So you've got you love that, don't you? I do. You've got post combustion, pre combustion and oxy fuel combustion. Break it down, brother. Okay. Well, I'll break down post combustion. Okay. It's exactly what it sounds like. Say you've got a coal fired power plant. Coal is super dirty. Even clean coal is very dirty. Right. If you can figure out a way to trap that CO2 that's escaping from the flu, then all of a sudden you've just captured carbon. Right. Right. And one way to do that is to introduce some sort of like gel or compound. There's some I know Georgia Tech's working on one called hyperbranched amino silica. Wow, look at you. Thanks. You weren't even reading that. No,

I wasn't. Very impressive. It's not even in this article, pal. And my brain is mush. There's no way I could do that. And actually, I guess it's because it's so hyperbranched. It traps carbon dioxide molecules and actually locks into them. So it's a silica. It's kind of sandy. So it works as a filter? It does. But you know, so some flue gases get out, but the carbon dioxide doesn't. And the cool thing is it's like it just sits there, just traps it until it's heated again. Right. And if you heat it in the under the right circumstances, you can capture just the CO2 and compress it and get rid of it. That's one example of post combustion. The key to post combustion is you're already burning the fossil fuels and you're capturing as much CO2 as you

can before it escapes into the atmosphere out of smoke stack. Right. One thing I noticed in that where you said once you heat it again, it leaves behind the concentrated CO2, but it releases water vapor is I wonder if that water vapor is part of the problem as well though. It seems like it water vapor is again, it's a greenhouse gas, but it's also a flue gas, which is a mixture of a whole bunch of stuff that that comes out of burning fossil fuels. Right. But again, we're after the CO2, but it seems like getting the CO2 separated from the water vapor is a problem as well. Gotcha. Yeah. It's been said that a day of traveling will bring a basket full of learning. Fill your basket to the brim in Mississippi with family friendly experiences like the

new Mississippi Aquarium, the recently expanded Hattiesburg Zoo, the Tupelo Buffalo Park and Zoo and sports and literary attractions too. Expand your sense of wonder today at visit Mississippi dot org slash family fun. Mississippi Wanderers. Welcome. I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild present Bridgewater season two. A lot of people now actually believe that there is some kind of mystical force in this region that attracts monsters and paranormal activity. The Bridgewater Triangle. And that sounds about right. You're still denying that there's something beyond our understanding going on here. Starring Supernatural's Misha Collins, The Walking Dead's Melissa Ponzio and Rogue One's Alan Tudyk written by Lauren Shippen

and created by me, Erin Mankey. Something about all of this doesn't feel right. Hello. Is someone there? Something went wrong here. Olivia, we should hurry. We have a much bigger problem. What is that? Olivia, run. Listen to Bridgewater now on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and learn more over at grimandmild.com slash Bridgewater. So you want to do precombustion? Yeah, sure. Why not? This is when carbon is carbon is trapped. I'm sorry, carbon dioxide, I guess I should say is trapped before the fossil fuel is burned. So before it's diluted with other flue gases is when you capture it. So precombustion before it's burned. Right. And apparently Chuck, what you do is you actually heat

whatever fossil fuel you're using in the presence of pure oxygen and you get this other, this brand, this completely different thing, carbon monoxide and hydrogen, right? Right. And then you run it through a catalytic converter and it produces more hydrogen, which is good because you can actually reuse that for energy to maybe even power this whole process, right? And then you get carbon dioxide as well, right? And then you put them in a flask with a chemical called amine. And the amine actually holds the CO2 down. Right, sits on top of it. Right. And then eventually you can extract the amine and the hydrogen, reuse the amine and trap the CO2. Right. Sounds like kind of a lot. It does. I wonder if we're going to get any cool sound

effects like our distillery. That would be very cool. That would be super cool. We'll see. And if we did, yeah, didn't you just hear it? Yeah, Jerry's ignoring us right now, so that might not happen. So it is a lot. Precombustion is a big process. Yeah, it's already in use actually for natural gas. They've already been using this. It is. The thing is, it's in use in a brand new power plant. The good thing about postcombustion is you can run around the country and retrofit old power plants to capture carbon dioxide. Precombustion, you pretty much have to build that in as you're building a new power plant. And it's also super expensive. It uses a lot of energy. What, precombustion? Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I thought it was lower in cost. Is it? Well,

the process is lower in cost, but I think it's more expensive because it's not a retrofit. Right. But it also, it's higher in the cost of energy that it uses to go through this process from what I understand. I was talking about dollars, buddy. Hey, dude, you still got to pay for energy somehow. Pay now or pay later, Jerry. Right. Right. And then the last one is oxy fuel, right? Oxy fuel combustion. Yeah, that's the power plant burns fossil fuel and oxygen and this results in a gas mixture comprised of steam and carbon dioxide. So the steam and CO2 were separated when you cool it and compress the gas stream. Right. So there you have it. There you have it. And all three of these capture between 80 and 90 percent of the carbon dioxide

that's escaping. I think oxy feels the most oxy feels it like 90 percent. Yeah, topping out at 90. So those are pretty much the three competing ways to capture carbon dioxide and use right now. And it seems like we're talking about power plants a lot. Those are definitely the focus of carbon capture right now. Right. You know, they're huge emitters of carbon dioxide. Like there's a, I think, a Southern company plant in Juliette, Georgia, and it emits more carbon dioxide than the entire power infrastructure of Brazil. Really? Which seems a little lopsided because you just blogged about Brazil recently on a sugarcane biofuel post, right? Today. And they're very, very energy independent thanks to the cellulistic ethanol that they make from sugarcane.

Right. So it's a lopsided comparison, but still. Right. One power plant shouldn't be putting out, you know, more CO2 than any country. Sure, you would think. Right. But unless that country is tiny. Like maybe Vatican City. Yeah. Is that a country? Yeah. Dude, I walked around Vatican City one time by accident. Well, it was my friend Brett and I were kind of, well, we were on the wrong side of where we needed to be. And we thought, well, we'll just skirt around this wall here. And I think it'll be quicker. And I didn't realize that we were walking around the country. Did you come face to face with the Pope? And I'm just like, what are you doing here? No, but it took, what are you doing here? It took forever. It was much,

a much longer walk than I anticipated. And now that I realize it's a country that kind of all makes sense. Does it make sense? It does. Gotcha. Cool place, though. I've heard. Moving on. Yes. So now, Josh, what we have is captured carbon. We got a whole lot of carbon dioxide. What do we do with it, Chuck? Well, you need to transport it first before you can store it. How? Through a pipeline. Oh, yeah. I already talked about that. Right. That's a good thing. Is the infrastructure is in place. And I think here's another stat. There's more than 1500 miles of CO2 pipelines already in place here in the US. It sounds like a lot, but technically it's not. Like, consider the amount of oil pipelines and that kind of thing. That's true. And that,

actually, I was talking about a lopsided figure with the Southern company plant in Brazil. You know, CO2 pipeline safety, as far as fatalities and accidents go, is really low compared to natural gas and hazardous materials pipeline. I think to the tune of... I've got stats. No, you do it. No, I want you to do it. No, these are death stats. No, you. Okay. That's, we're talking... These are death stats. We're talking between 1986 and 2006. There's only been 12 CO2 pipeline leaks with no injuries. None? Yeah, none. Zip. And over the same period, more than 5,000 accidents with 107 fatalities with liquid petroleum pipelines. So whoop, whoop. It sounds like CO2 pipelines are way safer, but again, there's a lot fewer.

Yeah. And your friend Debbie Ronca thinks that these things, these accidents will probably increase as the CO2 pipeline infrastructure increases in breadth. Right. And we should say Debbie wrote this. We didn't just chat about this and Debbie threw out her opinion. Right. Debbie wrote this also. Her formal trainings in pediatrics. Right. Debbieafreakgirl.com. Oh, is that her? Huh? Nice. Good girl. Oh, you're just plug happy, aren't you? Yeah, you know. I think just for old time's sake, you should plug our audio book. I mean, you know, spoken word, Alville. Yeah, we'll do it later. I'm never going to get that right there in the front of my head. They'll never be the first thing I call that. So now we have it in a pipeline

and we are transporting it where it needs to go, which it depends on where you pick it up and where it needs to be for where it needs to travel and is pretty simple. Right. But we're also, we should probably say that there's different. You could transport CO2 three different ways, right? Gas, liquid and solid. Right. And the most efficient is gas, right? Yeah. Of course. Of course. Solid CO2 actually is dry ice. Did you hear that? Yeah, I didn't. Yeah. Sadly. And it's not very cost effective to transport as a solid, obviously. And gas is easier because you can compress it with these, you know, these compressors kind of push it through the pipeline every so often they have these compressors. Sure. And we're shooting it too, though.

Well, shooting it to the storage area, Chuck. They're, yeah, which depends on what storage you're going to use, what kind of storage you're going to use. Well, what kind do you want to use? I mean, there's only two underground and underwater, right? Right. What kind do I want to use? What kind of you want to use? If you're Chuck King of the world, then somebody says, well, let's see something about CCS. You say, I decree that we're going to store it underground. Underground. All right. Nice. Nice. The ocean thing worries me a little bit. They both worry me a little bit, actually. But yeah, let's start with underground. Okay, let's do underground. Well, Josh, there are some estimates. If you want another stat, you're right. This is Chuck full

stats. The planet can store up to 10 trillion tons of CO2 underground, which is 100 years of storage of all human anthropogenic carbon contributions, which sounds good, but that's really not the very long 100 years. No, but consider this, I was actually, when I wrote the article, can we bury our CO2 problem under the ocean? I think is what it was called. There's no telling what kind of technology we're going to have. We could conceivably take that trapped carbon dioxide and exert tons of force and make synthetic petroleum out of it. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. So 100 years is a really long time with the kind of technological advances we've been. Sure. We've been undertaking in the last 100 years. Right? Yeah. I mean,

think about 1989 and what it was like then. Yeah. I don't like to. Compared to now. That's a syphilis. Yeah. Sure. So yeah, that's underground. It's pressurized when it's at deep underground, and it behaves more like a liquid than a gas when it's set for underground, because it like seeps into all the little cracks and porous rocks, which is a good thing. Right. And actually, there's a specific rock that they found works really well for carbon storage, and that is basalt, which is volcanic rock, right? Yeah. Yeah. And they just inject, what is it? Do they inject gaseous, gasified CO2? Gasified. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. They inject it directly into the rock, and actually, the rock transforms from basalt into limestone.

Yeah. Pretty cool. It converts it into rock. So basically, like regular rock. It's like a hyper-accelerated geological process that's going on. But when I read that, I thought, wow, that's great. What a great idea. We just need to run around injecting all the basalt in the world with CO2, and we'll be set. It'll just have a big limestone planet. And then again, I thought, we really don't know what we're tinkering with here. Right. Like, what happens if we have like too much limestone on the planet? We can't say. We don't know. True. Like this, I can't tell almost, I hate to admit this, but I can't tell if this kind of tinkering may actually result in much more catastrophic consequences than just going the way we're going and trying to go

with biofuels. You never know. I don't. You know, a lot of the end of the world movies where it shows like the future, how mankind was wiped out, the little thing they'll use to turn the story was we were trying to do something great and discovered something we thought was great, but it turned out to be some irrevocable change that led to our demise. You're talking about Soil and Green, of course. Well, yeah. And just a lot of movies like that. But that's a great point. Actually, Soil and Green's a great example. Yeah. Soil and Green. We think we're doing something really good and that might lead to our undoing. Waterworld. Greatest movie ever made. Definitely maybe. Really? Yeah. What did that have to do with this? It was highly post apocalyptic. Okay.

Yeah. I'll have to see that one. I thought it was a... Oh, you haven't seen it? I thought it was a cheesy romance. No, it starts out like that and the twist at the end is mind boggling. Yeah. It's like the road warrior. So go ahead, Chuck. We're talking underground or are we done with that part? No. Well, we're almost done. What happens is they're studying all that right now. So your fears, hopefully, can be dismissed because they're looking to see what the result will be. Sure. And as far as it goes, I think the oldest underground CO2 storage site is actually under the seafloor in Norway. Yeah. And it's only as old as 1996. Right. And it hasn't had an accident or anything, but it's still, it's only 13 years old. Yeah. It's a baby. Yeah. So I mean, what happens

in 50 years or 100 years? Exactly. And that's what they're keeping their eye on. They're worried about it too. I mean, we definitely have to do something, but I don't know. I'm just a little hesitant. All right. I agree. Yeah. Well, you want to talk about the ocean? Yeah. Let's talk about the ocean. I'm with you. I'm much more trepid about the ocean storage and that. There's, again, I wrote an article called Can We Bury Our CO2 Problem in the Ocean? And in that article, there's this guy who came up with the idea of having these pipelines pump liquefied, not gasified, but liquefied CO2 directly into enormous bags in the ocean. Oh, that's right. At the abysmal plane? Yeah. Not abysmal plane. Abyssal. Yeah. But I imagine it's pretty abysmal down there. Yeah.

So yeah, down on the abyssal plane, right? And it's a pretty good idea. The problem is, this is these huge, enormous bags can only store, I think, a day or 10 worth of carbon dioxide captured. There'd be a lot of bags. It'd be a lot of bags, and they'd end up really quick. And if any one of them ruptured, we don't know what would happen. But apparently from a little more investigation, if we bury this stuff or dump it in the ocean deep enough, which is to the tune of about 11,500 feet, 3,500 meters, nice, then we could just let it go and hope for the best that the incredibly low pressure and temperatures will basically globify it. Yeah, compress it. It'll just be floating around. This sounds like a terrible, terrible idea to me. Yeah.

With any kind of cloud that I may have as a human being and a podcaster, I would like to here now say that I think just dumping our captured carbon dioxide into the ocean is one of the worst ideas I've heard this year. Yeah. I know Greenpeace had been wild about the idea. No. And they said it's not even feasible until at least the year 2030. It's been said that a day of traveling will bring a basket full of learning. Fill your basket to the brim in Mississippi with family friendly experiences like the new Mississippi Aquarium, the recently expanded Hattiesburg Zoo, the Tupelo Buffalo Park and Zoo, and sports and literary attractions too. Expand your sense of wander today at visitmississippe.org slash

Family Fun, Mississippi. Wanderers, welcome. I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild present Bridgewater Season 2. A lot of people now actually believe that there is some kind of mystical force in this region that attracts monsters and paranormal activity. The Bridgewater Triangle. Now, that sounds about right. You're still denying that there's something beyond our understanding going on here? Starring Supernatural's Misha Collins, The Walking Dead's Melissa Ponzio, and Rogue One's Alan Tudyk, written by Lauren Shippen and created by me, Aaron Mankey. Something about all of this doesn't feel right. Hello? Is someone there? Something went wrong here. Olivia, we should hurry. We have a much bigger

problem. What is that? Olivia, run! Listen to Bridgewater now on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And learn more over at GrimandMild.com slash Bridgewater. So, you know, I mean, I have two camps. It's good that we're exploring things like this. Sure, agreed. But, you know, it would be much better if we had electric cars powered by solar energy rather than just thinking of different ways to keep using fossil fuels over and over and over. Right, no. And that's a good point. I noticed Greenpeace was kind of not too hip on this either. And I agree with them as well. I think that we basically have to, stuff like this, really distracts us from making hard decisions and hard choices. This is easy. We get to, like, our lives don't

change at all. It's just the power companies need to go retrofit their old, their old flues with, you know, scrubbers of some sort. But for us to have electric cars or to have biofuels, we're going to have to pay more gallon, that kind of thing. So, it does affect us. So, people aren't paying that much attention to it. Right. That's not to say this is pie in the sky technology, though. True. You know, I mean, it's very viable and it's going on now, still. Right. Right. Hopefully, work's going to be done on a lot of fronts and there will be multiple solutions. You know what my favorite idea was? What? Did you read it, that little sidebar about the company SkyMind? I did not. Okay, so SkyMind has figured out a way where they just take sequestered carbon

dioxide and they inject it with salt and water, sodium hydroxide, right? And it creates a chemical reaction that forms baking soda. Oh, really? That's it? God, baking soda is good for everything. It is. Not everything. I just think that's the greatest idea ever. The problem is we'd have massive baking soda stores and the baking soda market in which I'm heavily invested would just bottom out. Sure. So, I mean, I like it as an idea, but financially it would suck for me. Right. No fridge would ever stink again, though. No. We could probably make fridges out of baking soda with that much later on. Yeah. You know, if they can make a suitcase out of cocaine, they can probably make a refrigerator out of baking soda. The operative word is they. They. But getting back to the water

real quick, you were talking about leaking CO2 from the ocean. Remember our little Exploding Lake podcast? Yeah. That's a great example of what happened. CO2, baby, coming up through the water. So, that could happen. Lake Nios. And we should also probably mention carbon sink. Yeah. Which is a phenomenon. The ocean actually does absorb CO2 from the atmosphere already. And what happens now is it's sinking to the bottom, ideally. But some oceans, like the Southern Ocean, have soaked up so much that it's not soaking it down to the bottom anymore. It's not sinking. It's kind of staying on top. Right. And that makes the water very acidic, which is not good for fishies. No. Which is, again, Lake Nios, we have no idea what happened in the marine life. Probably because

they were exploded into trillions of pieces. Right. That's tough to count. So, yeah, a little troublesome. I mean, capturing carbon, this is a good thing. Storing it a little more dodgy. Yeah. I mean, we'll see what happens. We're going to screw up this planet one way or another. Sure. Might as well make it quick, like in just a huge massive eruption of CO2 into the atmosphere that chokes us all to death. Well, that sounds encouraging, I'm sure. Well, it'll get filtered out eventually. And some strange new lifeform will eventually take over and screw it up later on. So, boy, you're a bright one today. Just a shining light. Yeah. So, Chuck, I'm glad we did this again, buddy. Me too. This one's done until next time. Yes. Until that carbon dioxide explode. Let's

agree right now. We don't do carbon capture and storage again until that massive eruption takes place. All right. Deal. Part three. There you have it. Coming not too soon. So, you know what time it's for then. It's time for Chuck to plug our spoken word album. Chuck, go ahead. Wow, it's been so long. It was on economics, if I remember correctly. Sure. The stuff you should know Superstuff got of the economy. Yeah. You can buy it in your iTunes store for what was the final price, four bucks. Something like that, yeah. $3.99. Yeah. $3.95, something like that. Nice. And again, we got really good feedback on it, didn't we? We did. Yeah. And it was a good experience. So, yeah, there's Chuck plugging our audio book, the stuff you should know Superstuff got to the economy.

I can't believe I remember the name of it still. Just for old time's sake. And that means that it is listener mail time. All right, Chuck, what do you have for us, baby? Compass Head, catcher's mitt. I have something I'm just going to call shocking listener mail. Okay. We have a lot of that lately. Yeah, we had a fan that wrote in that was struck by lightning. Yeah, not just the fan, but her dog too. Yeah. And she just kind of offhandedly mentioned it because she was talking about she read that spontaneous human combustion could be caused by lightning. And I was struck by lightning, by the way. And that was kind of it. And I wrote her back. I was like, no, no, no, you need to give me some details here, because I would like to read this on the air. And I've

never talked to anyone who I was struck by lightning. Yeah. So here we go. It turns out it was a side strike, which I never heard of. And she says a side strike is a really well phenomenon of lightning. It struck about a half a block from me. It was incredibly bright. And I was blinded for a few minutes afterward. I was not back about six feet, but still landed on my feet. And I couldn't hear for a good half hour afterward. It was a booming and crackling yet incredibly quiet, which I thought was interesting. I can't totally explain the sound except to compare it to the sound you get when you skydive, which doesn't help me. So I've never been skydiving. It's kind of like a, have you done it? No, no way. It's terrifying. Okay, I believe it. The rush of wind booms around you, but is

definitely still. Would you agree with that? Yeah, similar, sort of. Oh, you were all hammered when you did it. What are you talking about? You don't remember. In my research about lightning strikes and strike victims, I found it incredible that a side strike can occur up to a mile away from something and you can still receive the electrical charge. I saw the lightning strike, but I didn't feel any pain. So I assumed I wasn't hit. Wasn't till later in the day when burn marks showed up. I don't think I lost consciousness, but I was totally routed on the spot where I was standing. Rooted? R-O-U-T-E-D? I'm not sure. If it wasn't for my dog, I probably would have continued to stand there for a while. Yeah, I guess she was rooted. That makes sense. My dog was so frightened

that she just took off running, was holding onto the leash and couldn't let go. So I sort of ran blindly after her to her house. I was an emotional blur for a decent while afterwards. Consequently, my dog's black fur is now very speckled with white hair. And let me see. That actually coincides with another of our podcasts. And she had singes across her fingers and toes, little burn blisters, and as far as long-term damage, let me see. She has affected her balance some and messes with her inner ear, but her frontal lobe is fine, and she's taken neurological exams and psychological testing, and she is fine and normal and considers herself very lucky. I consider her very lucky, too. So that is Hannah of Tennessee, and we're very glad that you and your little girl,

Poochie, are all okay. Hannah, I would strongly recommend that you play the Lotto as often as you can. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, if you want to tell us any amazing true stories about lightning, shark attacks, bar fights, whatever, you can send us an email. That's what they call these days, right Chuck? Electronically. You can send that to StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? A day of travel brings a basket full of learning in Mississippi, with family-friendly places like the Mississippi Aquarium, the Hattiesburg Zoo, and Tupelo Buffalo Park. Explore today at visitmississipi.org

slash family fun. Mississippi, wanderers, welcome. In 1968, five black girls were picked up by police after running away from a reform school in Mt. Megs, Alabama. I'm writer and reporter Josie Defi Rice. And in a new podcast, I investigate the abuse that thousands of black children suffered at the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children and how those five girls changed everything. Listen to Unreformed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.