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The Largest Carbon Capture Project in the U.S. Could Be in West Texas. Do Residents Want It?

News Feed
Wednesday, October 2, 2024

ODESSA, Texas (AP) — West Texans will have their say this week regarding a proposed carbon dioxide injection site when the Environmental Protection Agency holds a series of public meetings in Ector County.The proposed project — which has been under review for the last two years — would be the largest of its kind in the United States. Occidental Petroleum Corporation, or Oxy, an oil and gas company based in Houston, wants federal approval to capture and store an estimated 722,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide in three injection wells 4,400 feet underground.“We know that achieving global net zero by 2050 requires technological solutions that can quickly reduce emissions on a large-scale,” William Fitzgerald, a spokesperson for Oxy, said in a statement. Oxy “has been safely and securely storing CO2 underground for more than 50 years.”Known as Stratos, the facility would be located 20 miles southwest of Odessa. Oxy previously broke ground last year. Public testimony begins Wednesday with an information session at 7 p.m. and ends Oct. 7. The agency can take up to 90 days to issue a final decision, including changes to the proposal.If approved, Oxy would receive what’s known as Class VI permits, the first of their kind in Texas and the surrounding region that includes New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and 66 Tribal Nations.Certain sectors of the energy industry have embraced carbon capture and storage to propel the nation toward its climate goals. For its part, the federal government has put up about $12 billion for eligible projects under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.Climate advocates argue that the evidence about the advantages of decarbonization is insufficient and that it falls short of offsetting the greenhouse gases emitted by removing them from the atmosphere.Companies are pursuing projects anyway. Multiple plans to capture and store carbon dioxide are underway in Texas, including a natural gas power plant in Baytown owned by Calpine Texas CCUS Holdings, which was eligible for up to $270 million in federal dollars. A second San Antonio-based gas company, Howard Energy Partners, was awarded $3 million in federal money to “evaluate the technical and economic feasibility” of transporting 250 million tons of carbon dioxide from the Gulf Coast. Another project in southeast Texas, owned in part by Chevron, spans almost 100,000 acres.None, however, are close to the amount of carbon dioxide Oxy hopes to capture, inject and store underground.Oxy is one of the top oil and gas producers in the Permian Basin. With roughly 2.8 million acres between Texas and New Mexico and the biggest direct air capture facility in its portfolio, the company has become a household name in the Texas oil and gas industry. The proposed injection sites will create 120 jobs, Oxy said in a statement.Oxy said the Stratos project will provide more jobs, workforce training programs, educational opportunities and economic development in the region, but did not provide specifics. Earlier reports said the site will cost about $1 billion to construct.While it is unclear whether this project qualified for federal incentives, 1PointFive, the company’s subsidiary dedicated to carbon capture, in September received $500 million for a direct air capture plant in South Texas.Carbon dioxide is a byproduct of oil and gas production. When a fossil fuel company burns coal, crude oil, or natural gas, it emits carbon dioxide. The greenhouse gas traps heat and prevents the atmosphere from cooling.Oxy intends to capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and put it underground. Federal regulators determined that the energy firm met every requirement under the Safe Drinking Water Act and accounted for the protection of groundwater. Their review also concluded that the risk of seismicity due to the injections was minimal.And if necessary, the permit “also puts requirements in place in the event of potential groundwater contamination and/or seismic activity, including shutting down injection operations,” an agency spokesperson said.Oxy will capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through direct air capture, or DAC. The technology separates the gas from other particles in the air and then raises the temperature to incinerate them, leaving only the carbon dioxide. The equipment compresses the remaining gas by raising the pressure until it is the consistency of a brine that is transported and stored permanently in pockets of rock underground.According to the proposal, Oxy will monitor the pressure and temperature of the proposed sites on the surface of the well and downhole. Temperature and pressure gauges will be measured every second on the surface and every ten seconds in the well, providing a reading every ten minutes. A change in pressure could indicate a problem.The proposal stated that operators would monitor corrosion in the well four times a year or every three months. Similarly, the groundwater will be monitored every three months unless the regulators ask for additional testing. After three years, groundwater monitoring will occur once annually. The company must alert the EPA 30 days before most tests or if there are any changes. It must also alert them of any malfunctions within 24 hours.The oil and gas industry introduced carbon capture and sequestration to remediate excess greenhouse gas emissions from its operations since the 1970s. These emissions harm human health and deteriorate the atmosphere, and scientists agree they spur climate change. Industry leaders say it will help the country meet its climate goals and cool global temperatures.The benefits of carbon capture and storage have been fiercely debated for as long as the technology has existed. Climate advocates and scientists have been skeptical. They say no project has worked fast enough to offset the greenhouse gas emissions from major emitters.A handful of proposals in Louisiana were subject to backlash from the community, which expressed concerns over contamination.Commission Shift, a Texas-based watchdog group, said carbon capture and storage threaten groundwater sources. In a statement, the organization said the EPA should refrain from approving the project until the state resolves other lingering issues with saltwater injections, another underground disposal technique contributing to earthquakes in West Texas.“Outside of the ineffectiveness and inefficiency of (carbon caputure) as a climate mitigation solution, the injection and sequestration of carbon dioxide is dangerous to the land, water, communities, and ecosystems nearby,” Paige Powell, senior policy manager for Commission Shift, said in a statement on Friday.Ramanan Krishnamoorti, senior vice president of energy at The University of Houston, said neither the public nor the industry should consider carbon capture a permanent solution. He said that residents should pay particular attention to the precautions that Oxy and the EPA will take in case of a leak or contamination.“We need not build up our hopes that this is the be-all, end-all solution, but the solution that has a time and place,” said Krishnamoorti, an advocate of carbon capture and sequestration technology. “Let’s use it as appropriate, but with very clear eyes that we understand what the hazards are, what the risks are, and how do we make sure that we lessen the risk to the maximum extent possible, and yet be able to do it reasonably.”This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

West Texans will have their say this week regarding a proposed carbon dioxide injection site when the Environmental Protection Agency holds a series of public meetings in Ector County

ODESSA, Texas (AP) — West Texans will have their say this week regarding a proposed carbon dioxide injection site when the Environmental Protection Agency holds a series of public meetings in Ector County.

The proposed project — which has been under review for the last two years — would be the largest of its kind in the United States. Occidental Petroleum Corporation, or Oxy, an oil and gas company based in Houston, wants federal approval to capture and store an estimated 722,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide in three injection wells 4,400 feet underground.

“We know that achieving global net zero by 2050 requires technological solutions that can quickly reduce emissions on a large-scale,” William Fitzgerald, a spokesperson for Oxy, said in a statement. Oxy “has been safely and securely storing CO2 underground for more than 50 years.”

Known as Stratos, the facility would be located 20 miles southwest of Odessa. Oxy previously broke ground last year. Public testimony begins Wednesday with an information session at 7 p.m. and ends Oct. 7. The agency can take up to 90 days to issue a final decision, including changes to the proposal.

If approved, Oxy would receive what’s known as Class VI permits, the first of their kind in Texas and the surrounding region that includes New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and 66 Tribal Nations.

Certain sectors of the energy industry have embraced carbon capture and storage to propel the nation toward its climate goals. For its part, the federal government has put up about $12 billion for eligible projects under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Climate advocates argue that the evidence about the advantages of decarbonization is insufficient and that it falls short of offsetting the greenhouse gases emitted by removing them from the atmosphere.

Companies are pursuing projects anyway. Multiple plans to capture and store carbon dioxide are underway in Texas, including a natural gas power plant in Baytown owned by Calpine Texas CCUS Holdings, which was eligible for up to $270 million in federal dollars. A second San Antonio-based gas company, Howard Energy Partners, was awarded $3 million in federal money to “evaluate the technical and economic feasibility” of transporting 250 million tons of carbon dioxide from the Gulf Coast. Another project in southeast Texas, owned in part by Chevron, spans almost 100,000 acres.

None, however, are close to the amount of carbon dioxide Oxy hopes to capture, inject and store underground.

Oxy is one of the top oil and gas producers in the Permian Basin. With roughly 2.8 million acres between Texas and New Mexico and the biggest direct air capture facility in its portfolio, the company has become a household name in the Texas oil and gas industry. The proposed injection sites will create 120 jobs, Oxy said in a statement.

Oxy said the Stratos project will provide more jobs, workforce training programs, educational opportunities and economic development in the region, but did not provide specifics. Earlier reports said the site will cost about $1 billion to construct.

While it is unclear whether this project qualified for federal incentives, 1PointFive, the company’s subsidiary dedicated to carbon capture, in September received $500 million for a direct air capture plant in South Texas.

Carbon dioxide is a byproduct of oil and gas production. When a fossil fuel company burns coal, crude oil, or natural gas, it emits carbon dioxide. The greenhouse gas traps heat and prevents the atmosphere from cooling.

Oxy intends to capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and put it underground. Federal regulators determined that the energy firm met every requirement under the Safe Drinking Water Act and accounted for the protection of groundwater. Their review also concluded that the risk of seismicity due to the injections was minimal.

And if necessary, the permit “also puts requirements in place in the event of potential groundwater contamination and/or seismic activity, including shutting down injection operations,” an agency spokesperson said.

Oxy will capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through direct air capture, or DAC. The technology separates the gas from other particles in the air and then raises the temperature to incinerate them, leaving only the carbon dioxide. The equipment compresses the remaining gas by raising the pressure until it is the consistency of a brine that is transported and stored permanently in pockets of rock underground.

According to the proposal, Oxy will monitor the pressure and temperature of the proposed sites on the surface of the well and downhole. Temperature and pressure gauges will be measured every second on the surface and every ten seconds in the well, providing a reading every ten minutes. A change in pressure could indicate a problem.

The proposal stated that operators would monitor corrosion in the well four times a year or every three months. Similarly, the groundwater will be monitored every three months unless the regulators ask for additional testing. After three years, groundwater monitoring will occur once annually. The company must alert the EPA 30 days before most tests or if there are any changes. It must also alert them of any malfunctions within 24 hours.

The oil and gas industry introduced carbon capture and sequestration to remediate excess greenhouse gas emissions from its operations since the 1970s. These emissions harm human health and deteriorate the atmosphere, and scientists agree they spur climate change. Industry leaders say it will help the country meet its climate goals and cool global temperatures.

The benefits of carbon capture and storage have been fiercely debated for as long as the technology has existed. Climate advocates and scientists have been skeptical. They say no project has worked fast enough to offset the greenhouse gas emissions from major emitters.

A handful of proposals in Louisiana were subject to backlash from the community, which expressed concerns over contamination.

Commission Shift, a Texas-based watchdog group, said carbon capture and storage threaten groundwater sources. In a statement, the organization said the EPA should refrain from approving the project until the state resolves other lingering issues with saltwater injections, another underground disposal technique contributing to earthquakes in West Texas.

“Outside of the ineffectiveness and inefficiency of (carbon caputure) as a climate mitigation solution, the injection and sequestration of carbon dioxide is dangerous to the land, water, communities, and ecosystems nearby,” Paige Powell, senior policy manager for Commission Shift, said in a statement on Friday.

Ramanan Krishnamoorti, senior vice president of energy at The University of Houston, said neither the public nor the industry should consider carbon capture a permanent solution. He said that residents should pay particular attention to the precautions that Oxy and the EPA will take in case of a leak or contamination.

“We need not build up our hopes that this is the be-all, end-all solution, but the solution that has a time and place,” said Krishnamoorti, an advocate of carbon capture and sequestration technology. “Let’s use it as appropriate, but with very clear eyes that we understand what the hazards are, what the risks are, and how do we make sure that we lessen the risk to the maximum extent possible, and yet be able to do it reasonably.”

This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

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Food becoming more calorific but less nutritious due to rising carbon dioxide

Researchers noticed ‘dramatic’ changes in nutrients in crops, including drop in zinc and rise in leadMore carbon dioxide in the environment is making food more calorific but less nutritious – and also potentially more toxic, a study has found.Sterre ter Haar, a lecturer at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and other researchers at the institution created a method to compare multiple studies on plants’ responses to increased CO2 levels. The results, she said, were a shock: although crop yields increase, they become less nutrient-dense. While zinc levels in particular drop, lead levels increase. Continue reading...

More carbon dioxide in the environment is making food more calorific but less nutritious – and also potentially more toxic, a study has found.Sterre ter Haar, a lecturer at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and other researchers at the institution created a method to compare multiple studies on plants’ responses to increased CO2 levels. The results, she said, were a shock: although crop yields increase, they become less nutrient-dense. While zinc levels in particular drop, lead levels increase.“Seeing how dramatic some of the nutritional changes were, and how this differed across plants, was a big surprise,” she told the Guardian. “We aren’t seeing a simple dilution effect but rather a complete shift in the composition of our foods … This also raises the question of whether we should adjust our diets in some way, or how we grow or produce our food.”While scientists have been looking at the effects of more CO2 in the atmosphere on plants for a decade, their work has been difficult to compare. The new research established a baseline measurement derived from the observation that the gas appears to have a linear effect on growth, meaning that if the CO2 level doubles, so does the effect on nutrients. This made it possible to compare almost 60,000 measurements across 32 nutrients and 43 crops, including rice, potatoes, tomatoes and wheat.“Although there was a lot of data from previous studies, there were few answers,” said Ter Haar. “These studies used paired experiments, where plants were grown under identical conditions except for one thing: the CO2 level. This gives insight into possible changes, but the sample sizes were usually too small to draw conclusions from. Comparing these individual studies with each other was difficult because, as we know, the baseline of CO2 is continuously increasing in our atmosphere, meaning that the baseline in these experiments is also increasing.”Their “baseline” measurement was a gas concentration of 350 parts per million – sometimes referred to as the last “safe” level. They compared this with a concentration of 550 parts per million, which some scientists expect to be reached by 2065. Most nutrients would respond negatively to the rise in concentration, they said, with an average drop of 3.2%.However, zinc in chickpeas would be expected to plummet by up to 37.5%, with a “significant” decrease in protein, zinc and iron in essential crops such as rice and wheat. The researchers warned of “devastating health consequences” including “hidden hunger, where people have sufficient food calorically but insufficient nutrients”.The CO2 level is now 425.2 parts per million, the paper said, which had already resulted in “lowered levels of plant nutrition due to CO2 rise”.The study is part of a growing body of research on the impact of climate breakdown on crops, not only outdoors but also in artificial conditions. The Netherlands is one of the world’s largest agricultural exporters, with three-quarters of its production for export and more than 4,100 hectares of greenhouses, where crops are grown in CO2-enriched environments to increase the yield.“Climate change isn’t a faraway problem,” said Ter Haar. “The effects are already on our dinner plate.”Other experts welcomed the Dutch study, saying it was a good basis for further investigation. Courtney Leisner, an assistant professor at the school of plant and environmental sciences at Virginia Tech in the US, coauthored a study earlier this year on how crop improvement strategies could counteract the negative effects of CO2 on crop quality. “This study offers critical insights into how environmental conditions affect crop nutritional quality, which is essential for sustaining future food security,” she said.There are, however, other factors such as fertiliser application that play an important role in how nutritious our crops are, said Jan Verhagen, a researcher on climate change and sustainable agriculture at Wageningen University.“Indeed, nutrient levels in plants are changing,” he said. “Whether this is only related to CO2 is, I believe, less clear … we know that nutrition is a key factor in food security and health in general, so it makes sense to shift the focus on this topic.”He said more experiments would be needed to help design breeding programmes for crops with certain nutrient levels under different environmental stresses to better understand the effects of agricultural practices.The meta-analysis raises as many questions as it answers, said Ter Haar – who wants to do further study on climate change and nutrients.“Our goal isn’t to scare people,” she said. “The first step in solving a problem is acknowledging it, and with that, we think our study could be a useful puzzle piece.”The research was published in the journal Global Change Biology.

CO2
Food
Climate

How cement “breathes in” and stores millions of tons of CO₂ a year

New analysis provides the first national, bottom-up estimate of cement’s natural carbon dioxide uptake across buildings and infrastructure.

The world’s most common construction material has a secret. Cement, the “glue” that holds concrete together, gradually “breathes in” and stores millions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air over the lifetimes of buildings and infrastructure.  A new study from the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub quantifies this process, carbon uptake, at a national scale for the first time. Using a novel approach, the research team found that the cement in U.S. buildings and infrastructure sequesters over 6.5 million metric tons of CO2 annually. This corresponds to roughly 13 percent of the process emissions — the CO2 released by the underlying chemical reaction — in U.S. cement manufacturing. In Mexico, the same building stock sequesters about 5 million tons a year.   But how did the team come up with those numbers? Scientists have known how carbon uptake works for decades. CO2 enters concrete or mortar — the mixture that glues together blocks, brick, and stones — through tiny pores, reacts with the calcium-rich products in cement, and becomes locked into a stable mineral called calcium carbonate, or limestone. The chemistry is well-known, but calculating the magnitude of this at scale is not. A concrete highway in Dallas sequesters CO2 differently than Mexico City apartments made from concrete masonry units (CMUs), also called concrete blocks or, colloquially, cinder blocks. And a foundation slab buried under the snow in Fairbanks, Alaska, “breathes in” CO2 at a different pace entirely. As Hessam AzariJafari, lead author and research scientist in the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, explains, “Carbon uptake is very sensitive to context. Four major factors drive it: the type of cement used, the product we make with it — concrete, CMUs, or mortar — the geometry of the structure, and the climate and conditions it’s exposed to. Even within the same structure, uptake can vary five-fold between different elements.” As no two structures sequester CO2 in the same way, estimating uptake nationwide would normally require simulating an array of cement-based elements: slabs, walls, beams, columns, pavements, and more. On top of that, each of those has its own age, geometry, mixture, and exposure condition to account for.  Seeing that this approach would be like trying to count every grain of sand on a beach, the team took a different route. They developed hundreds of archetypes, typical designs that could stand in for different buildings and pieces of infrastructure. It’s a bit like measuring the beach instead by mapping out its shape, depth, and shoreline to estimate how much sand usually sits in a given spot.  With these archetypes in hand, the team modeled how each one sequesters CO2 in different environments and how common each is across every state in the United States and Mexico. In this way, they could estimate not just how much CO2 structures sequester, but why those numbers differ.  Two factors stood out. The first was the “construction trend,” or how the amount of new construction had changed over the previous five years. Because it reflects how quickly cement products are being added to the building stock, it shapes how much cement each state consumes and, therefore, how much of that cement is actively carbonating. The second was the ratio of mortar to concrete, since porous mortars sequester CO2 an order of magnitude faster than denser concrete. In states where mortar use was higher, the fraction of CO2 uptake relative to process emissions was noticeably greater. “We observed something unique about Mexico: Despite using half the cement that the U.S. does, the country has three-quarters of the uptake,” notes AzariJafari. “This is because Mexico makes more use of mortars and lower-strength concrete, and bagged cement mixed on-site. These practices are why their uptake sequesters about a quarter of their cement manufacturing emissions.” While care must be taken for structural elements that use steel reinforcement, as uptake can accelerate corrosion, it’s possible to enhance the uptake of many elements without negative impacts. Randolph Kirchain, director of the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, principal research scientist in the MIT Materials Research Laboratory, and the senior author of this study, explains: “For instance, increasing the amount of surface area exposed to air accelerates uptake and can be achieved by foregoing painting or tiling, or choosing designs like waffle slabs with a higher surface area-to-volume ratio. Additionally, avoiding unnecessarily stronger, less-porous concrete mixtures than required would speed up uptake while using less cement.” “There is a real opportunity to refine how carbon uptake from cement is represented in national inventories,” AzariJafari comments. “The buildings around us and the concrete beneath our feet are constantly ‘breathing in’ millions of tons of CO2. Nevertheless, some of the simplified values in widely used reporting frameworks can lead to higher estimates than what we observe empirically. Integrating updated science into international inventories and guidelines such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would help ensure that reported numbers reflect the material and temporal realities of the sector.” By offering the first rigorous, bottom-up estimation of carbon uptake at a national scale, the team’s work provides a more representative picture of cement’s environmental impact. As we work to decarbonize the built environment, understanding what our structures are already doing in the background may be just as important as the innovations we pursue moving forward. The approach developed by MIT researchers could be extended to other countries by combining global building-stock databases with national cement-production statistics. It could also inform the design of structures that safely maximize uptake. The findings were published Dec. 15 in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Joining AzariJafari and Kirchain on the paper are MIT researchers Elizabeth Moore of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the MIT Climate Project and former postdocs Ipek Bensu Manav SM ’21, PhD ’24 and Motahareh Rahimi, along with Bruno Huet and Christophe Levy from the Holcim Innovation Center in France.

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Government

Panda Express pays fine for failing to train employees on handling hazardous materials

Panda Express has agreed to pay $1 million for failing to train employees on how to safely handle carbon dioxide in soda machines.

Panda Express has agreed to pay $1 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it failed to train its employees on how to handle its soda machines. The parent company of the Rosemead-based fast-casual Chinese American food chain had to pay a penalty for failing to educate its employees on handling carbon dioxide used for carbonated fountain beverage systems.The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Carbon dioxide is typically stored in tanks and is widely used by restaurants. California’s hazardous materials law requires that employees receive training on the storage and handling of carbon dioxide. Leaks that displace oxygen can result in serious harm or even death. Restaurants are required to certify employees and file reports with local regulators confirming such training.The lawsuit was filed after an investigation by Riverside County alleged that Panda Express failed to train its restaurant personnel on safe handling of carbon dioxide, and did not disclose employee training information as required by state law. Panda Express, the originator of the orange chicken, operates more than 500 locations in California, including 30 in Riverside County.“We don’t see a lot of these violations, so I would assume this would be a wake-up call for restaurants in general,” said Richard Shank, senior principal at Technomic, a research and consulting firm for the food services industry. “Typically, beverage stations are leased from a beverage supplier and serviced by third parties, including the CO2, so this may have identified a gap in training that was unknown to Panda.” “Panda’s workplace culture is built on a strong training foundation,” he added, “so I’m inclined to believe that this settlement possibly identifies a need to clarify roles between the beverage supplier and the restaurants.” The Riverside County district attorney’s office said the settlement was reached after Panda Express took steps to comply with California law regarding training and updating reporting and training records.Panda Express has been ordered to pay $881,925 in civil penalties, $100,000 in supplemental environmental projects, and $75,000 in cost reimbursement.

CO2
Culture
Food

Ohio bills aim to sideline local critics of carbon capture projects

Ohio legislators are considering bills that would bar local governments from having a say in permitting projects that capture carbon dioxide emissions and inject them underground. The legislation could even force some landowners to let their property be used for carbon dioxide storage. The framework proposed in the…

Ohio legislators are considering bills that would bar local governments from having a say in permitting projects that capture carbon dioxide emissions and inject them underground. The legislation could even force some landowners to let their property be used for carbon dioxide storage. The framework proposed in the twin bills being considered by the state House and Senate starkly contrasts with Ohio’s approach to wind and solar farms, most of which can be blocked by counties. Instead, carbon capture and storage projects would follow a process similar to what’s used for oil and gas drilling, in which property owners must allow development on or below their land if enough neighbors support it. At least one large energy company, Tenaska, is already talking to Ohio landowners about obtaining rights to drill wells and store carbon dioxide from industrial and energy operations deep underground. An executive with the firm said the legislation would provide ​“clarity” for its planned carbon storage hub serving Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. “This project will provide manufacturers, industrial facilities, and other businesses in this region with a solution to address growing environmental regulations and climate goals,” said Ali Kairys, senior director of project development for Tenaska. The company is in discussions with various carbon-emitting businesses, including steel refineries, ethanol plants, and power plants. The Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub could also be a potential customer, Kairys said. In Ohio, Tenaska is eyeing Harrison, Jefferson, and Carroll counties as prime places to store CO2 underground. The three counties are among the state’s top oil and gas producers and have a history of coal mining. Tenaska initially hopes to store captured carbon dioxide in the Knox formation, which ranges from 8,500 feet to 12,000 feet below the Earth’s surface, Kairys said. Second-stage storage would use another formation roughly 5,500 to 8,000 feet underground. Other carbon sequestration projects could be on the horizon. The Great Plains Institute has identified roughly three dozen industrial facilities across the state as candidates for carbon capture projects. And even though the Trump administration is relaxing the environmental regulations that may motivate such efforts, 45Q tax credits expanded by the Inflation Reduction Act incentivize companies nationwide to develop storage projects. Ohio’s House Bill 170 and Senate Bill 136 would give the state Department of Natural Resources ​“sole and exclusive authority to regulate carbon sequestration,” a power the agency also has over oil and gas production via existing law. The Ohio Supreme Court has interpreted the oil and gas law’s language to block local government regulation of drilling, even through general zoning rules that apply to other businesses. If passed, the bills would similarly deprive counties and townships of any say over sequestration, said Bev Reed, an organizer for the Buckeye Environmental Network. ​“It’s … another really tragic thing that the Legislature is forcing on us.” The bills would also authorize a ​“consolidation” process that operators can undertake to force landowners to allow carbon dioxide storage in their property’s subsurface ​“pore space” if owners of 70% of the remaining area for an injection project have signed on. The process is similar to that for unitization, which lets oil and gas companies drill through dissenting landowners’ properties. The chief of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ oil and gas management division would be required to grant consolidation if it was ​“reasonably necessary to facilitate the underground storage of carbon dioxide.” A landowner could only object on the grounds that the facility’s design threatens ​“a commercially valuable mineral,” such as oil, gas, or coal. “You don’t get to object and say this is dangerous, this is ill-conceived or for any other reason,” said Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, a professor at Cleveland State University College of Law. ​“Reasonably necessary is a very low standard” for forcing property owners to give up the use of their pore space, she added. Asked to respond to advocacy groups’ complaints that the process is unfair, Tenaska’s Kairys focused instead on landowners’ potential for income.

CO2
Government
Climate

US Exits Carbon Talks on Shipping, Urges Others to Follow - Document

By Jonathan Saul and Michelle NicholsLONDON (Reuters) -The United States has withdrawn from talks in London looking at advancing decarbonisation in...

By Jonathan Saul and Michelle NicholsLONDON (Reuters) -The United States has withdrawn from talks in London looking at advancing decarbonisation in the shipping sector and Washington will consider "reciprocal measures" to offset any fees charged to U.S. ships, a diplomatic note said.Delegates are at the UN shipping agency's headquarters this week for negotiations over decarbonisation measures aimed at enabling the global shipping industry to reach net zero by "around 2050".An initial proposal by a bloc of countries including the European Union, that was submitted to the UN's International Maritime Organization (IMO), had sought to reach agreement for the world’s first carbon levy for shipping on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions."The U.S. rejects any and all efforts to impose economic measures against its ships based on GHG emissions or fuel choice," according to a diplomatic demarche sent to ambassadors by the United States."For these reasons the U.S. is not engaging in negotiations at the IMO 3rd Marine Environment Protection Committee from 7-11 April and urges your government to reconsider its support for the GHG emissions measures under consideration."It was not clear how many of the IMO's 176-member countries received the note."Should such a blatantly unfair measure go forward, our government will consider reciprocal measures so as to offset any fees charged to U.S. ships and compensate the American people for any other economic harm from any adopted GHG emissions measures," the note from Washington said.Washington also opposed "any proposed measure that would fund any unrelated environmental or other projects outside the shipping sector", the note added.U.S. officials in Washington did not immediately comment when contacted late on Tuesday.The IMO had not yet received any communication, an IMO spokesperson said on Wednesday.Shipping, which transports around 90% of world trade and accounts for nearly 3% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, has faced calls from environmentalists and investors to deliver more concrete action, including a carbon levy.(Reporting by Jonathan Saul, Michelle Nichols, Gram Slattery and Kate Abnett; Editing by Sharon Singleton)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

CO2
Government

Suggested Viewing

THE SPRAYER

In the land occupied with the sprayers army, no one has the right to grow any kind of plants either in public or private. So many of the people and soldiers do not even know how a plant grows or looks like, until one day one of the soldiers finds a seed buried deep down in the dust and his curiosity is just the beginning of something extraordinary, something big, something revolutionary.

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CO2? CO-Nee!

Joep van Dijk is a passionate climate scientist. He likes to search for extreme examples that show how life can be lived sustainably. This documentary follows Joep on his CO2-neutral journey from Amsterdam to the United States of America and shows how this choice inspires himself and others to live a climate conscious life.

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The Carbon Chronicles

The Carbon Chronicles: Who owns the air? The Carbon Chronicles is an experimental animated visualisation of the build-up of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses has radically altered the Earth’s atmosphere. It is a collaboration between artists from the Manifest Data Lab and scientists from the British Antarctic Survey. The animation maps from the industrial revolution to the present day the regions contributing most to the climate crisis, which can be traced through the stalagmite growths representing CO2 emissions growing out from the different countries. Beginning with the UK in the 1750s, emissions from coal start enveloping the planet, other regions soon follow. By the late 1800s through to the current period, growing industrial and extraction activity in the Global North is responsible for 92% of CO2 with 8% coming from the Global South. The spread of CO2 described in the animation mirrors the wider historic processes of power distribution visited on poorer countries and shows that the atmosphere is as contested a space as the territories beneath it. The work describes a living breathing planet, under the pressure of human produced exhalations of CO2. It attributes responsibility in ways that can inform the need for equitable solutions to the climate crisis that are mindful of the historic consequences of carbon exploitation and its impacts. The Carbon Chronicles informs the need for equitable solutions to the climate crisis that are mindful of the historic consequences of carbon exploitation to ask: Who Owns the Air?

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Experimental

A Low Carbon Future for China’s Furnace Cities

China’s economic development and rapid urbanization has led to a dramatic rise in energy consumption due to excessive heating and air-conditioning causing carbon emissions of immense proportions. China’s government has set the ambitious target of reducing CO2 emissions by 40–45% by 2020 against the 2005 baseline. A UK/China-funded team working on how to solve the problem in some of the most extreme climate regions in China. The team discovers groundbreaking solutions using computational-fluid-dynamics simulations.

CO2
Energy
Climate

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