In summary
Rural Latino communities are divided about the project, which would capture carbon from an oilfield and power plant — and allow an oil company to keep operating as the state struggles to slash greenhouse gases.
In western Kern County, where rolling hills are punctuated by bobbing rigs, the state’s largest oil and gas producer is betting that a novel technology will stave off the extinction of California’s fossil fuel industry.
The proposal has split this region, known as California’s oil country: Some want a future for oil and gas with less carbon emissions, while others insist that the polluting industries must go altogether.
In a project that would be California’s first attempt to capture and sequester carbon, California Resources Corp. plans to collect emissions at its Elk Hills Oil and Gas Field, and then inject the gases more than a mile deep into a depleted oil reservoir. The goal is to keep carbon underground and out of the atmosphere, where it traps heat and contributes to climate change.
Around the world, the race to build these carbon capture and storage projects is part of a broader bid by the oil and gas industry to remain viable in a world struggling to decarbonize.
In California alone, federal officials are reviewing 13 proposals to build projects — most in the Central Valley — that would capture carbon dioxide spewed by oil operations, power plants and other facilities or remove it from the atmosphere, then inject it underground into wells.
Although California aims to phase out nearly all fossil fuels, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration said they must rely on carbon capture to eliminate millions of tons of greenhouse gases a year to meet its mandate of carbon-neutrality by 2045. The state may become even more reliant on this new technology than originally envisioned to stay on track in cutting planet-warming emissions.
“We have a very unique market in California, where you have a state government that’s pushing really in favor of an energy transition,” Francisco Leon, California Resources Corp.’s chief executive officer, said during a recent earnings call. “But we also have a state that has relied on oil and gas revenues to support the communities and to pave the roads, to pay for libraries and fire stations.”
At its massive oilfield in Kern County, a few miles from the mostly Latino, low-income community of Buttonwillow, California Resources Corp. is seeking approval to inject 1.46 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year over a 26-year period into an underground reservoir. That’s equivalent to the annual emissions of several hundred thousand gas-powered cars. The company hopes to expand to a second nearby reservoir once operations are underway.
The company needs permission from both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Kern County Board of Supervisors. Both are expected to make their decisions this year, and the company hopes to start its first carbon injections next year.
Many residents and environmental justice groups oppose these projects because they allow oilfields, power plants and other industrial operations to keep emitting dangerous air pollutants in their communities. At the Kern County project, emissions of fine particles and gases that form smog would be “significant and unavoidable,” according to the county’s…
[ad_2]
Read More: Why the first CA carbon capture project divides its neighbors