Hazardous CO2 pipelines, carbon capture and sequestration proposals are seeking permits in Illinois claiming to be a means to reduce carbon emissions. I believe we have a moral obligation to protect future generations from the impacts of climate change by reducing carbon emissions as quickly as possible. However, we do not have an obligation to promote false solutions that are devised to take our tax dollars and enable the fossil fuel industries to keep burning fossil fuels.
Industry has an incentive to produce CO2 because taxpayers are now providing them lucrative tax credits thru the Inflation Reduction Act to capture, transport and sequester (CCS) it in the ground. Now the industry plan is to create through many states a network of 60-70,000 miles of high pressure CO2 pipelines. These would reach up into populated areas and crisscross highly productive farm land and around our cities to numerous injection wells.
I do not believe that we know the future physical outcomes of injecting, at high pressures, hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 below the ground each year. Will the CO2 stay down forever, migrate up through fissures and cracks or cause earthquakes? Some are already seeing evidence of CO2 migrating up at the ADM Decatur test site. CO2 will create carbonic acid in the water underground, allowing the CO2 to dissolve heavy metals and radioactive material and bring those with it as CO2 migrates into an aquifer.
Safety of these CO2 pipeline is also in question. In 2020, there was a terrible CO2 Denbury company pipeline rupture in a small rural community. Satartia, Miss., which was a mile away from the CO2 pipeline rupture, had 50 people taken to the hospital and 200 people evacuated.
Why were people evacuated and rushed to hospitals in a city a mile away from the rupture? CO2 is under high pressure — 1300-2100 psi. Trunk pipeline diameters are usually 20-24 inches, with shutoff valves in many cases 20 miles apart. A major rupture can cause an explosion with a dispersion plume of CO2 created that does not go up, like natural gas. CO2 is heavier than oxygen and displaces it, CO2 is odor- and colorless. Even with valves being shut off, miles of highly pressurized CO2 pipeline release a tremendous amount of CO2. So, the people in Satartia were suffering from a lack of oxygen that caused confusion, seizure-like symptoms, foaming at the mouth, difficulty breathing and now some have chronic health conditions. Many could not evacuate, because their cars would not operate. Emergency responders had to walk to rescue people.
After the Satartia disaster, the federal government agency responsible for pipeline safety, the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA) realized that our CO2 pipeline safety regulations were inadequate. Especially, with the prospect of a vast CO2 pipeline network.
Yet the pipeline companies are rushing to get state building permits before PHMSA has new regulations in effect. Stricter regulations will make building pipelines more costly. By its actions, industry is telling the public that its profits are more important than our safety.
Illinois counties, townships, cities, villages, farm bureaus and the public throughout areas of Illinois who now face the threat of pipelines and sequestration sites are saying “No.” They are asking for this all to slow down, to have more research and justification before spending billions of tax dollars on this unproven CO2 transport infrastructure.
If you believe in manmade climate change, you would expect to find studies by independent researchers that show that the lifecycle analysis to create and operate a new CO2 capture, transport and sequestration system will actually reduce overall carbon emissions and have a cost benefit. Instead, what we see is ExxonMobil purchasing the Denbury pipeline company that owns the Satartia rupture pipeline. ExxonMobil is sending the message that it is covering both bases. It will enable the company to project continuous oil production profits to its shareholders while using the bait and switch of CO2 capture and sequestration to reap billions of our tax dollars in payment to put some of its CO2 waste product in the ground.
I know that some people do not believe climate change is caused by man. They also should be opposed to wasting billions on this carbon infrastructure, harming productive farmland and risking the public’s health and safety and our precious Illinois clean water aquifers.
We will be better off spending our limited financial resources building out renewable energy, enhancing the electric grid, battery storage and improving energy efficiency.
Please remember that the 2-3 companies now proposing to build CO2 pipelines in Illinois are only the beginning. They want to crisscross Illinois with them — your area maybe next. The pipeline companies want to reap all the benefits and profits of disposing of their waste and leave the people with the risk.
Alan Gubert, the award-winning agriculture journalist, has just written an article published in several media in which he discusses the findings of Mark Z.
Jacobson, a civil and environmental engineer at Stanford University who analyzed the climate and lack of consumer savings from the proposed Summit CO2 pipeline. Mr. Gubert summarized Mr. Jacobson’s over-arching message in his article title “Don’t bury CO2 pipelines, bury their very idea.”