What is Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)?

“Carbon sequestration is a process where carbon dioxide (CO2) is injected into geological formations deep underground.

To date, this carbon capture and storage (CCS) approach has only been tested on a small scale and there are still some improvements to be made. Within geological formations, escape pathways of the stored carbon can arise.”
-Clarissa Wright

“Carbon capture is an umbrella term for technologies, some of them first proposed in the 1980s, that aim to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere or catch emissions and store them before they are released into the air.” -Eden Weingart (NY Times)

Community Safety Concerns

In the event of a CO2 pipeline rupture, Louisiana’s nearby residents and wetlands would be exposed to high concentrations of CO2 gas, which is an incredibly dangerous substance. Carbon dioxide has many dangerous properties, including: carbon dioxide is heavier than air and displaces oxygen; carbon dioxide is an asphyxiant; the gas is an intoxicant and could interfere with victims’ efforts to evacuate; carbon dioxide interferes with the engine combustion of cars. If a pipeline ruptured and high amounts of carbon dioxide entered the air, the risk of injury or loss of life for humans and wildlife would be worryingly high.

CCS typically involves transporting carbon dioxide (CO2) in pipelines.

    • CO2 is an asphyxiant, meaning that inhaling significant quantities can cause unconsciousness or death.

    • CO2 is an intoxicant, meaning that inhaling it in significant quantities can confuse you and make evacuation difficult.

    • CO2 interferes with engine combustion, meaning that in the event of a CO2 pipeline rupture, you might not be able to start your car and escape, and ambulances would be unable to reach you.

    • CO2 is also odorless and colorless, which makes it difficult to detect.

    • Pipeline operators can’t guarantee that a pipeline won’t leak.

    • These things are not hypothetical– in 2020, residents of Satartia, Mississippi encountered all these characteristics of CO2 when a pipeline ruptured in their community.

      • Over 40 people had to seek medical treatment, and multiple people were hospitalized and sustained brain damage.

      • Read more here: Gassing Satartia

Environmental Concerns

We want wetlands, not wastelands!

    • Louisiana’s geology is already fragile. Injecting CO2 into our wetlands, lakes, or Gulf is an unnecessary risk.

    • CO2 injection can increase seismicity, or risk of earthquakes.

    • CO2 injection can also increase risk of subsidence, which could cause the ground to shift or levees to collapse.

    • Remember Bayou Corne, when the failure of a waste injection project caused whole trees to be swallowed by a sinkhole and the forced evacuation of an entire bayou community?

    • Oxychem, the company liable, has at least two of the first CCS proposals

    • Watch Dr. Alex Kolker’s presentation on the risks of CCS to Louisiana’s Geology

    • Blue hydrogen refers to the production of hydrogen with a CCS component attached to the hydrogen facility.

    • More often than not, hydrogen is used to make ammonia– a dangerous and polluting chemical– for fertilizer.

    • Hydrogen is not “clean” when it’s burned, no matter how it’s produced– burning it still releases gasses into the atmosphere and allows pollution to poison our air and water.

    • As renewable energy develops and implementation becomes more streamlined, the prices of renewable will only get lower.

    • CCS adds billions of dollars of costs to already expensive forms of energy generation.

    • Furthermore, CCS actually increases CO2 production and co-pollutants, so it does not even accomplish the one thing it claims to do– decrease CO2 emissions.

Economic Risk

    • CCS is funded by the 45Q tax credit, a federal subsidy– aka, taxpayer dollars.

      • This tax credit has been exploited in the past, as the IRS conducts very little oversight for who receives funding. The Department of Treasury found that big corporations have fraudulently claimed $1 billion for CCS so far.

    • Additionally, plans to attach CCS to power plants need even more money, which will cause power plants to raise energy bills for many of their customers.

    • Many of the “economic analyses” about jobs benefits of CCS are done by PR firms hired by CCS companies; those analyses are biased.

    • Companies rarely, if ever, state where they are sourcing their materials from to build CCS facilities, so the boost to the local economy can be further overstated.

      • Example: If the project is constructed in Louisiana, but the timber comes from Mississippi, who is getting the jobs the company claims to create? We should be skeptical.

    • An Illinois company’s (ADM) carbon capture project cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and only created 11 jobs (Source here)