Don’t give away your subsurface rights PennLive letters by Dr. Karen Elias, Lock Haven, Pa., May. 20, 2024
What is “pore space?”
When fossil fuels are burned, they emit CO2, the greenhouse gas primarily responsible for global heating. The oil and gas industry wants to use Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to theoretically reduce these emissions, capturing CO2 at point of release – say, the smokestack of a gas-fired power plant — and transporting it by pipeline to a storage site where it is buried permanently in underground reservoirs known collectively as “pore space.”
Landowners in parts of Pennsylvania are already being asked by the industry to lease the ground under their feet for storage of carbon dioxide.
Here’s what can go wrong.
- CO2 can leak from faults in the reservoir or placement near abandoned wells.
- Contents can shift and migrate.
- Earthquakes and explosions can occur.
- Groundwater can become contaminated.
As we learned from the 2020 accident in Satartia MS, when a CO2 pipeline ruptured, CO2 in high concentrations can be deadly. Nothing in carbon storage technology guarantees that buried deposits of massive amounts of CO2 will remain locked in place forever.
Sitting on top of compressed CO2 may not be a great idea.
Under an old law, Pennsylvania landowners possess rights to the pore space under their property, but so far, no legal protections exist. SB 831 has passed the senate, though, allowing for “forced pooling.” If 60% of those around you say yes to the lease of their pore space, you don’t get to say no.
Pennsylvania is investing legislative time and effort in support of ineffective CCS technologies, and appears to be working on a legal framework that will allow appropriation of homeowners’ rights to the subsurface beneath their property.
The Oil & Gas Industry owned Govt of Alberta stole landowner pore space in 2010, getting ready to put rural lives significantly at risk with their CCS fraud – a scam to enable more and more climate destroying profit raping and pollution.
Pore space means more space for the fossil fuel industry. This time around, it’s not too late to say no.
Refer also to:
2024: Louisiana: Another high pressure CO2 pipeline failure, many could have been killed or sickened. Calls to Exxon went unanswered, took operator over two hours to show up to fix the leak. CO2 damages the brain. WTF with Denbury and it’s deadly pipeline failures?
2024: Carbon Capture (no matter what type) is a money laundering con job, steals from the poor to give to the rich, and industry, politicians and regulators know it. Another $2.4Billion CCS project, this one in Alberta, bites reality and dies for “lack of economical feasibility” despite “massive subsidies.”
2024: CCS Big Fat Fail: Carbon capture project in Illinois set free 90% of CO2 promised to be “permanently” stored
2024: Big Win for Sanity! EPA scrutiny of San Joaquin Renewables’ carbon capture & storage (CCS) in California’s Central Valley leads to abrupt end, while in Canada, politicians give $billions from the public purse to CCS con artists (oil & gas companies) to put human and other life at risk from suffocation (even miles from projects), pollute more and profit-rape more $billions. Deep stupidity (or corruption).
2023: Frac’ing ‘generation 3’ rock requires injecting captured carbon to make more oil flow. No wonder companies, lobby groups, regulators, gov’ts and Env NGOs are conning the world with Net Zero miracles via high risk Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).
2023: Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS): Fossil fuel industry and enablers pick perfect bend over liar at Geological Survey of Canada: Honn Kao. Not only can CO2 injection cause earthquakes, it won’t stay put, busts caprock, shoots to surface, pollutes ground water, migrates into and contaminates petroleum wells, kills, impairs cognitive function, harms families and communities
2021: 500 international, US, Canadian groups open letter to leaders to “reject carbon capture and storage.” CCS is high risk like frac’ing, another scam used by gov’ts to give oil and gas companies $billions of public money to produce more pollution
2021: North Dakota: “Thorny legal territory of subsurface property ownership.” Pore space “turf war.” Massive deregulation ahead to steal the valuable asset from landowners to give to oil and gas companies?
2021: North Dakota: Judge rules ‘pore space’ bill unconstitutional because it took property from landowners, destroyed its value, gave it to corporations: “The taking of pore space from surface owners is clearly and unambiguously for the constitutionally impermissible purpose of economic development to benefit private parties, i.e. the oil and gas industry.” Bill 2344 (2019) responded to Mosser v Denbury (2017). Alberta gov’t stole pore space from landowners in 2010.
2021: Satartia, Mississippi gassed by Denbury Inc., nearly killing dozens when CO2 P/L (contaminated with H2S) ruptured. Foreshadowing Canada’s Carbon Capture & Storage (that produces more pollution under guise of reducing it)? Deaths already reported in SK at Encana/Cenovus/Ovintiv’s CO2 injected oil recovery experiment.
2019: Stanford study casts doubt on carbon capture. Carbon capture technologies can cause more harm than good and increase air pollution!
2016: Harmful Levels Benzene, CO2 Detected at MidWest School Surrounded by 744 Active & Abandoned Oil Wells Within 1 Mile Radius, Including CO2 Injection Wells for Enhanced Recovery by Anadarko, Now Owned by Fleur de lis
2013: Denbury fined $662,500 for Mississippi blowout of CO2 injected in high pressure enhanced oil recovery, So much carbon dioxide came out that it settled in hollows, suffocating deer and other animals
2012: Potential for environmental impact due to acid gas leakage from wellbores at Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) injection sites near Zama Lake, Alberta
2012: Scientific American: Can Fracking and Carbon Sequestration Coexist?
2012: CO2 in Stream, Dead Ducks Prompt Wyo. DEQ Citation
2011: A Case History of Tracking Water Movement Through Fracture Systems in the Barnett by P. Handren, March 2011, Shale EPA Workshop
“As well density increases it becomes increasingly probable that wells will communicate either through previously created fractures or through adjacent wellbores and then into previously created fractures.”
2006: The Role of the Upper Geosphere in Mitigating CO2 Surface Releases in Wellbore Leakage Scenarios
2012: Potential for environmental impact due to acid gas leakage from wellbores at Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) injection sites near Zama Lake, Alberta
2012: Scientific American: Can Fracking and Carbon Sequestration Coexist?
2012: CO2 in Stream, Dead Ducks Prompt Wyo. DEQ Citation
Wyoming environmental regulators say carbon dioxide bubbling up from the ground may have killed six ducks and polluted a stream. The leak happened in an area where CO2 is injected underground to help revive an old oil field and boost oil production. The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality has ordered Anadarko Petroleum to identify and control the carbon dioxide leak into Castle Creek in central Wyoming. The Casper Star-Tribune reports (bit.ly/V3dCYG) DEQ also is telling Anadarko to monitor the stream’s acidity until three consecutive tests show normal pH. A state violation notice says company officials identified a nearby carbon dioxide injection well as the possible source of the leaking gas.
