Page 52 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 27 Final
P. 52
The Environment
without producing In 2016, a nearby school
any additional was shut down after CO2
energy. and other toxic gases leaked
Infrastructure into the school.[5] When
demand: Once concentrated, CO2 is lethal.
carbon is captured, it A catastrophic release would
must be pressurized be damaging to the climate
and transported via as well as deadly. But many
pipelines to suitable smaller leaks from wells and
locations to be infrastructure can also wreak
pumped into wells havoc. Very little monitoring
or underground at the injection sites is
ge o l og i c a l mandated. ExxonMobil
formations for and other oil companies
(theoretical) storage. have lobbied persistently to
Massive amounts of ensure that requirements for
infrastructure would monitoring are minimal at
be required. best.
Unproven reliability The myth of carbon capture has
of storage: There is enabled fossil fuel industries
no sound basis to to continue spewing emissions
assume that CO2 and pollution despite
package extended the 45Q tax that is injected below climate, environmental,
credit for companies capturing ground will remain there. and environmental justice
carbon and included US$2 When CO2 is used for EOR, it consequences.
billion to finance six carbon is assumed that some portion
capture projects: four of them will remain below ground,
for EOR and the others to fund and the rest will return to the
a steel and a cement plant.[4] surface in solution with the
oil. In theory, that CO2 could
Energy penalty: Capture of be separated out from the oil
CO2 emissions is technically and reinjected underground.
challenging and itself requires
a large amount of energy. That Uncapped and abandoned oil
means a coal, gas or power wells are scattered across the
plant will burn more fuel to world and leak various gases.
produce the same amount When CO2 is pumped into
of energy. That means more these wells, which often are
mining, more fracking, more not isolated from one another
cutting down of forests below ground, it can leak out
for biomass, more of the from adjacent openings in
various forms of power plant unpredictable ways.
pollution (nitrogen dioxide,
sulfur dioxide, particulates, Following CO2 injection for
mercury, etc.), and more of EOR in the Salt Creek oil field
the social and environmental in Wyoming, CO2 seeps were
damage from extraction – all found in several locations.
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