The Environmental Protection Agency is getting deluged with applications from companies, predominantly located in oil and gas states such as Louisiana and Texas, seeking to capture and store carbon dioxide underground. The Biden administration is betting that carbon capture and sequestration will make a major contribution to reducing atmospheric CO2, a primary greenhouse gas.
By a count from E&E News, as of Monday (Sept. 11), EPA had 119 applications in hand for injection wells to store CO2, up from 14 about a year ago. The surge is driven by generous tax benefits, but only two have been approved, both for an Archer Daniels Midland ethanol plant in Illinois.
Developers and several states are pushing EPA to speed up approvals. The states want EPA to hand over the permitting to them, a grant of “primacy,” which the agency has already accomplished for North Dakota and Wyoming. EPA has advanced a request from Louisiana. Arizona, Texas, and West Virginia are preparing applications.
But while states are lining up to get injection wells available for CO2 storage, other states are balking at granting rights of way for CO2 pipelines. The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission has rejected proposals from two pipelines within a week, The Center Square reported, the most recent on Monday (Sept. 11), turning down a proposal from Summit Carbon Solutions for a 2,000 mile pipeline from ethanol plants in five states across South Dakota for wells in North Dakota. North Dakota regulators in August turned down Summit’s application. The Center Square is a news service that covers U.S. state governments.
Earlier (Sept. 5) the South Dakota commission nixed the $3 billion Navigator Heartland Greenway pipeline’s plan to traverse the state. “This proposed project is 112 miles of disruption and destruction of the very way of life of thousands of South Dakotans,” said Brian Jorde, an attorney representing landowners in the pipeline’s path during the hearing. “It will have a negative economic impact on their farming and ranching and other businesses.”
The Navigator project would also cross portions of Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, and Nebraska. Its application at the Illinois Commerce Commission is facing considerable skepticism. Illinois Republican State Sen. Steve McClure, who attended an ICC public meeting late July, told The Center Square, “The crowd was largely against the pipeline. It was a packed house in the basement of the BoS Center and really the concerns of the public were about safety. What if the pipeline ruptures?”
McClure has called for federal rules addressing the safety of the pipelines. ““And that’s why I filed a bill in the Senate to ensure that no pipeline is built until after those federal guidelines come out,” McClure said. His bipartisan Senate Bill 1916 remains in committee.
McClure apparently doesn’t know that the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration regulates pipeline safety after the projects go into service. The American University Carbon institute notes that “from 2001 to 2020, there have been 5,750 significant pipeline incidents onshore and offshore, resulting in over $10.7 billion worth of damages.” The National Transportation Safety Board also investigates significant accidents.
ICC gas engineer Mark Maple told the commission the Navigator pipeline is “inconsistent with the public interest, public benefit, and legislative purpose as set forth in the [Illinois] CO2 Act….Therefore, the commission should deny NHG’s application for a certificate of authority.”
The New York Times reported in late July that CO2 pipelines have become a political issue in Iowa, where the state Republican caucus plays an early role in the 2024 presidential year, creating strange allies among environmentalists, including the local Sierra Club, and conservative Republicans, including hard-right-conservative and former Rep. Steve King who lost his seat after racist comments. The Times wrote, “The left-right alliance is giving voice to Iowa landowners infuriated by the prospect that their land could be seized by eminent domain for the pipelines.”
Three proposed CO2 pipelines would cross Iowa, the $4.5 billion summit project, the $3 billion Navigator line, and the $630 million Wolf Carbon line, where corn-based ethanol plants, fueled by natural gas and coal, are major industries in the agricultural state.
A woman in Iowa earlier this summer asked former President Donald Trump, leading the GOP contenders in Iowa, at an Iowa rally, if he will “help us in Iowa save our farmland from the CO2 pipelines.” The exchange was captured by MSNBC and posted on Xitter. A clearly clueless Trump (who probably can’t spell CO2) responded with typically incoherent bluster and blather. He said he is “working on that” and that he “had a plan to totally, uh, it’s such a ridiculous situation,” reassuring the crowd, “if we win, that’s going to be taken care of. That will be one of the easy things we do.”
The Times reporter commented, “The moment has been laughed off as a show of Mr. Trump’s ability to bluster his way through anything, but the issue is tricky: Several of the Republican candidates have cast doubt on the established climate science and would seem disinclined to back a project aimed at reducing carbon emissions. But opposing the pipeline also means opposing Iowa’s all-important ethanol industry.”
While states are pushing injection wells and rejecting pipelines, there are also some plans for water-based approaches to moving and sequestering CO2. Bloomberg reported in June, “A major Japanese ship-builder is getting ready for a new type of seaborne cargo: trapped CO₂.” The company is Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Co., which is working on a prototype to haul large amounts of liquid CO2 over long distances. The article says, “While liquid CO₂ hauling ships have already been used by the food industry, the company expects its vessel will be the first to specifically service the nascent carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) sector.”
–Kennedy Maize
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