[creativeSlumber]

Comparing it to X flights maybe correct from a greenhouse emissions standpoint, but extremely misleading from a safety perspective. A jet emits that co2 spread over tens of thousands of miles. The problem here is it all pooled in one location.

Also that statement of 70 meters seem very off, looking at the size of the building. What leads to suffocation is the inability to remove co2 from your body rather than lack of oxygen, and thus can be life threatening even at 4% concentration. It should impact a much much larger area.

[epgui]

It's a gas in an open space, it diffuses very quickly.

[to11mtm]

Yep. When I had to fill CO2 tanks at a paintball shop yes there were times that I had to open a door (I mean we were talking a lot of fills in short time, btw fills had to start with draining the tank's existing volume so I could zero out the scale) but even indoors a door+fan was enough to keep even the nastiest of sale days OSHA compliant.

Also a 'puncture' is very different from the gasbag mysteriously vanishing from existence; My only other thought is that in cold regions (I saw wisconsin mentioned in the article) CO2 does not diffuse quite as fast and sometimes visibly so...

[ben_w]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limnic_eruption

I don't know the safety limits for this quantity, I hope the "70 meters" claim was by someone who modelled it carefully rather than a gut check.

[jojobas]

It also deflates pretty slowly. I'd guess any breeze would remove the hazard altogether.