Taal volcano emits voluminous toxic gas, ‘vog’ reappears

https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/other/taal-volcano-emits-voluminous-toxic-gas-vog-reappears/ar-AA1pNdRU

Taal Volcano in Batangas province emitted more sulfur dioxide (SO2) on Saturday, August 31, causing the reappearance of volcanic smog or “vog.”

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) reported in its latest bulletin issued on Sunday morning, September 1, that the volcano released a “voluminous emission” of 9,645 metric tons (MT) of SO2 from the volcano’s main crater in the past 24 hours.

The plumes rose to 2,400 meters above Taal Volcano Island, the volcano’s crater landmass, locally known as “Pulo,” that sits within Taal Lake, before drifting northwest.

The latest emission was a huge increase from the recorded 2,921 MT from August 26 to 28 and 4,389 MT logged on August 29 to 30.
Taal has emitted an average of 7,777 tons/day of SO2 for the year and has been continuously degassing voluminous concentrations since 2021.

Phivolcs again noted an “upwelling of hot volcanic fluids” in the main crater lake.

No earthquake was recorded during this latest monitoring period.

State volcanologists also observed the renewed presence of “vog” during this time after it disappeared on August 21.

The vog returned on August 26 but disappeared again the next day.

Vog is composed of SO2 gas. It can irritate the eyes, nose and throat. People with respiratory conditions and pregnant women are at greater risk. 

 > Taal has emitted an average of 7,777 tons/day of SO2 for the year and has been continuously degassing voluminous concentrations since 2021.

That's almost 8kt or 4kt of sulfur per day or 1.4Mt of sulfur per year. I wonder how stable that stream of gas is and if gas capture would be feasible to extract the sulfur, both for profit and to alleviate the ill effects on people and nature. A ton of sulfur is worth about $100, so that would be $140 million in sulfur per year. 🤔  

 You can sell sulfur? But it's in gaseous state. It can be converted to solid? Mmmm. Fascinating. 

 SO2 is a gas and a highly corrosive gas.

S is a rock and very easy to handle.

Of course, burning sulfur you get the corrosive gas again. 

 I hear the smell is not spectacular. 

 It has a sharp smell. The foul-egg-smell is H2S, which volcanoes also spit out. 

 Failure to appease the volcano God never went well... 

 tldr: you would need to hire a lot of lawyers, pay a lot of money (above and under the table), deal with a lot of environmental activists, and the whole !# 

LLM: The Taal Volcano Protected Landscape (TVPL) covers the entire Taal Lake, Taal Volcano Island, and the surrounding areas, amounting to approximately 62,292 hectares. This protected status means that the area is subject to regulations that aim to conserve its biodiversity, protect the environment, and manage sustainable development. Activities in the area, including potential resource extraction, are regulated to ensure that they do not harm the environment or disrupt the ecological balance.

Given this protected status, any industrial activities, such as large-scale sulfur extraction, would require thorough environmental impact assessments and would need to comply with strict regulations and conservation guidelines. The focus in such protected landscapes is typically on preserving the natural environment, which could complicate or limit industrial operations like sulfur capture. 

 Well, the amounts sounded just silly but I imagined something like 🌋 with a stream of SO2 coming out at the tip. If the SO2 leaks from a 234 square km lake, that's ... obviously not a very dense stream of SO2. But when it comes to environmental protection, the idea was precisely to protect the environment by capturing the leaking poisonous gas.