CO2 pipelines

[Anonymous]

2000 miles of pipeline proposed for 5 upper midwestern/plains states. Plan is to transport CO2 from ethanol plants to ND oil fields. The CO2 will go into the ground. It will also, according to the Sierra Club, allow for additional extraction from wells that have been depleted by current fracking methods.

My first thought was CO2 leaks, since CO2 is heavier than air and causes asphyxiation--I know people have died in pits and such because of CO2 accumulating at the bottom, and it can happen pretty quickly. There have been rare occasions in which some kind of natural phenomenon causes CO2 to pool in an area killing people (almost 2000 people in Africa were killed in the 80s by a CO2 eruption). Sierra Club also mentions that.

Sierra Club point that out, also emphasizing that this is not a "real" climate change solution ("greenwashing"). No idea what the net effect would be, which seems to me to be the most important aspect.

Pro? Con?

I do think they need to speed up the development of methods that sequester carbon dioxide in cement.

[Anonymous]

Or industry (and homeowners) could plant trees and native perennials. These plants sequester carbon in the plant itself and also in the soil. Or they could figure out a way to hire farmers to switch to regenerative farming, something sequesters an obscene amount of carbon in the soil. But pipes? This is stupid, this is (excuse the pun) a pipe dream.

[Anonymous]

Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) using injected CO2 has been going on for decades. Oil companies do this because it is a money maker for wells that are in decline - they don't give a rats about the climate. I am not convinced that the CO2 will stay in the ground for long.

The CO2 pipeline will happen if the numbers pencil out. That is the only criterion.

[Anonymous]

There are thousands of miles of CO2 pipelines in the US; they transport CO2 that is extracted from underground formations to these depleted oil wells, and have been doing this since the 1970s. It is safe and the CO2 will stay there if it's injected into the right spot.

There is a tax credit that pays $35/ton for carbon sequestered into depleted wells and used to extract more oil; $50/ton for dedicated storage in a saline reservoir. The new legislation is poised to up this and so prepare to see a lot more projects. so should the public be subsidizing EOR to this extent, given that it produces more oil? That would seem to be greenwashing to me. Also a configuration of this that supports the ethanol industry is questionable. (FWIW I went to a public hearing of the Iowa public utility board on this project and they said the CO2 would be used for dedicated storage, not EOR.)

But the fact is that we need to put carbon back underground. See the IPCC special report on 1.5 degrees. To meet the 1.5C temperature target, we have to remove 100 billion - 1 trillion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere over the century. That is not accomplishable with just planting more trees because of the land demands. Soil carbon / regenerative ag is another wedge but eventually these land-based carbon sinks get filled up. Then you have to keep the carbon there but you're not sequestering more year on year. We need some version of industrial projects and infrastructure for it. Whether we need the specific version that Summit or Navigator or whatever this midwestern ethanol plan is, is questionable, but we will need to build a lot of pipelines and injection wells if we want to limit warming to safer levels. Problem is that most people have never heard of any of this stuff and will not see the need for it. It is too bad because there could be opportunities for good jobs in rural areas and for former fossil fuel workers if we did it right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are thousands of miles of CO2 pipelines in the US; they transport CO2 that is extracted from underground formations to these depleted oil wells, and have been doing this since the 1970s. It is safe and the CO2 will stay there if it's injected into the right spot.

There is a tax credit that pays $35/ton for carbon sequestered into depleted wells and used to extract more oil; $50/ton for dedicated storage in a saline reservoir. The new legislation is poised to up this and so prepare to see a lot more projects. so should the public be subsidizing EOR to this extent, given that it produces more oil? That would seem to be greenwashing to me. Also a configuration of this that supports the ethanol industry is questionable. (FWIW I went to a public hearing of the Iowa public utility board on this project and they said the CO2 would be used for dedicated storage, not EOR.)

But the fact is that we need to put carbon back underground. See the IPCC special report on 1.5 degrees. To meet the 1.5C temperature target, we have to remove 100 billion - 1 trillion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere over the century. That is not accomplishable with just planting more trees because of the land demands. Soil carbon / regenerative ag is another wedge but eventually these land-based carbon sinks get filled up. Then you have to keep the carbon there but you're not sequestering more year on year. We need some version of industrial projects and infrastructure for it. Whether we need the specific version that Summit or Navigator or whatever this midwestern ethanol plan is, is questionable, but we will need to build a lot of pipelines and injection wells if we want to limit warming to safer levels. Problem is that most people have never heard of any of this stuff and will not see the need for it. It is too bad because there could be opportunities for good jobs in rural areas and for former fossil fuel workers if we did it right.

Again. Seriously. Think of the 40 million acres of lawn. They’re not absorbing carbon, and the chemical inputs kill the microbiome, frequently leading to more carbon being released. Convert some of this useless and environmentally expensive turf to native perennials or plant more trees and absorb some of that carbon.

[Anonymous]

Can’t they just burn the C02 in waste incinerators? Then use the energy generated to heat homes and make electricity.

That would make a lot more sense then piling it hundreds of miles to dump it under the ground.

And when you dump it in the ground, what happens when it gets into drinking water supplies from wells? People will be drinking water with C02 in it. When people start dying, this won’t seem like a very good idea.


Look at the funding for this boondoggle - dollars to donuts there’s a trumper behind it all. Grifters gonna grift.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can’t they just burn the C02 in waste incinerators? Then use the energy generated to heat homes and make electricity.

That would make a lot more sense then piling it hundreds of miles to dump it under the ground.

And when you dump it in the ground, what happens when it gets into drinking water supplies from wells? People will be drinking water with C02 in it. When people start dying, this won’t seem like a very good idea.


Look at the funding for this boondoggle - dollars to donuts there’s a trumper behind it all. Grifters gonna grift.

Decent effort at the troll, if a little too obvious. +1