
Yaw Is Feeling Blue
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Senator Gene Yaw is using his position as a Pennsylvania legislator to reward his fossil fuel donors and extend the life of methane extraction across the state. Without bothering to educate or consult Pennsylvania residents, who are sure to be impacted by his plans, Yaw has pushed his latest bill (SB 831) through the legislature, thereby moving a step closer to initiating a new phase of our state’s fossil fuel economy. The bill is clearly designed to pave the way for the carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology that will be needed to implement projects involved in the ARCH2 Hub. This Hub has been given a mandate by the federal Department of Energy to produce (blue) hydrogen from (fracked) methane gas, relying on CCS technology to step in (like an accessory after the fact) to bury the resulting carbon emissions underground – forever.
The technology is untested and unproven, and too many questions remain unanswered as to its safety, over both the short and long term. One of the ARCH2 projects in line to receive the benefits of CCS is the KeyState “hydrogen complex” being planned for West Keating Township in Clinton County, whose developer (Perry Babb) is already making unfounded claims about his project’s ability to capture and bury carbon emissions. The headlong rush to implement a hydrogen economy has to be seen as an effort on the part of fossil advocates like Yaw to extend the life of the Marcellus Shale for at least several decades.
After years of closely watching the fracking industry, we understand the clear harms it presents to people and to the environment. Are we really being asked to stand by and watch as the industry launches its second wave?
Sun Gazette article submission, published on July 5, 2024. By Karen Elias
Senator Yaw’s carbon capture bill (SB 831) is a step in the wrong direction.
This bill, passed by the legislature and signed by the governor without a hearing or opportunity for discussion, is yet another land grab by the fossil fuel industry.
To shore up that industry in the face of increasingly convincing critiques of its harms to human health and the environment, Senator Yaw has crafted a bill that will foster a new generation of dangerous polluting industries, further degrade our landscape with injection wells and pipelines, and create ongoing concerns about earthquakes, contamination of our water supplies, and possible explosions.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS), the focus of Yaw’s bill, involves capturing carbon dioxide, compressing it under high pressure, transporting it — usually by pipeline — and storing it underground. This process presents a risk to nearby communities should the pipeline develop a leak, a possibility made more likely by the fact that, in the presence of water, carbon dioxide becomes calcium carbonate, a corroding agent. Leaks can also develop due to severe weather. In 2020, a carbon dioxide pipeline ruptured in Satartia Mississippi, sending dozens of residents to the hospital and requiring the evacuation of hundreds more. Four years later, the impacted residents are still suffering from this explosion’s damaging effects.
CCS is not effective at capturing carbon in large quantities. Existing CCS facilities currently capture less than 1% of CO2 emissions annually. Because of Yaw’s bill, Pennsylvania’s valuable resources will now be used to support a dangerous technology, gussied up to fool us into believing it will solve the climate crisis. In fact, CCS will now be used to incentivize the production of blue hydrogen from fossil fuels, introducing yet one more source of methane pollution to our state.
Senator Yaw’s carbon capture bill not only poses a safety risk to communities; it also encroaches on the rights of property owners to determine how the ground under our feet will be utilized.
The bill specifies that — even if you have concerns — if a group of your neighbors decides to allow carbon dioxide to be buried under their land, your property will be included in the proposed storage facility without your consent.
This provision allowing what amounts to eminent domain is perhaps one of the reasons SB 831 was rushed through without discussion.
Major questions arise around the practice of permanent underground storage, few of which have been answered. Determining geologic suitability for storage requires extensive and time-consuming testing. Have we done such testing? Do we know that the upper boundaries of a storage area will hold, given the fact that carbonic acid can erode rock surfaces? Can we ensure that a deposit of CO2 will not migrate beyond its limits, finding ways to contaminate aquifers, and even rise to the surface through the thousands of abandoned wells that litter the state? Is there increased threat of seismic disturbance?
In addition, since the brine that already exists between underground rock formations must be extracted to allow storage of CO2, what do we intend to do with this additional radioactive waste stream?
SB 831 stipulates that, after a period of 50 years, the “primary responsibility and liability for the stored or injected carbon dioxide shall be transferred to the Commonwealth,” meaning that taxpayers will be liable for the repercussions of a process our legislature and governor have rushed, thoughtlessly, to embrace.Legislators on both sides of the aisle have spoken out against SB 831. With further education, this dangerous bill could be subject to repeal. Think about it.
KAREN ELIAS
Lock Haven
RDA thanks our friend and fellow activist, Karen Elias, of Lock Haven for authoring this issue of the newsletter.