Burying carbon dioxide underneath the Earth to prevent climate change. Some parts of America have been doing it for years. California has recently joined the party, but their plan has been buried in issues.
The Golden State’s first carbon vault is officially operational, but lingering questions remain about massive costs in a state that’s already struggling financially.
“This technology is super expensive,” Ileana Navarro, a policy associate at the Central California Environmental Justice Network, told Straight Arrow.
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Burying CO2
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the primary cause of climate change on Earth.
One way to prevent it from reaching places where it can be harmful is by burying it.
“It’s capturing carbon from a carbon source like a smokestack from a natural gas-powered fuel plant and then storing it underground about a mile underground for permanent storage,” Navarro said.
Roughly a dozen states inject CO2 into the ground, and several were approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just this year, including Illinois, Indiana and Colorado.
Burying CO2 is a way to slow climate change, which is a major issue despite political discourse.
While California is typically a leader in fighting climate change, they’ve been historically behind on this method and focused on other ways to reduce emissions.
“They’re focused on other solutions that are more palatable,” James Rector, professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley, told Straight Arrow. “People that promote solar and wind, they think that the solution is going to be all renewables, and they think that carbon storage is just perpetuating the oil and gas industry.”
California produces the second most renewable energy in the country, behind only Texas, with most of it coming from solar and wind.
Now they’re getting into the carbon dioxide injection game after getting approval in 2022 to begin the project and an agreement to create the first storage facility in a century-old oil field in Elk Hills, just west of Bakersfield.
Who’s in charge
Four years later, California’s largest oil producer, California Resources Corporation, is now burying CO2.
When it comes to who’s putting the regulations in place for this process, it’s a bit of a mixed bag.
It starts with the federal government and the EPA.
“All the rules and regulations are in place at the federal level,” Rector said.
However, when it comes to actually operating these sites, it tends to fall on the states. That’s where California seems to be having trouble.
The deadline was January 2025 for the state to have all of the rules in place, including how companies would prove they can pay for any cleanup and much more.
“It’s a little bit of who’s regulating what,” Navarro said. “So many agencies are involved. “In case of an emergency, they do have to report it. We don’t really know yet who will be responsible for repairing leaks or alerting the community, and do they have to alert the community?”
Carbon dioxide is an inert gas, but it can certainly be dangerous.
“In high concentrations, carbon dioxide can kill someone,” Navarro said.
With the state still figuring out regulations, California Resources Corp. is essentially policing itself in some ways while still required to comply with federal standards.
Financial concerns
Despite being one of the world’s largest economies, California is having some financial issues. State leaders have proposed some controversial remedies, including a proposed billionaire tax.
As mentioned, this technology is not cheap.
“Even though it’s really expensive, it’s still, compared to other technologies to reduce CO2, it’s one of the most cost-effective ways,” Rector said.
California Resources is relying on a mix of federal tax credits and state aid to fund the carbon capture.
Even then, the benefits of this project are environmental, not financial.
“It costs more to dispose of CO2 or capture CO2 and dispose of it than the subsidies for disposing it are worth,” Rector said. “So, it’s a money-losing operation in most applications.”
Any issues with this operation are sure to run up a high bill, but part of the problem is it’s unclear whose bill it is right now.
The Office of the State Fire Marshal did put in some regulations earlier this year, but they may have little impact on what’s going on in Elk Hills.
“That project won’t need to follow those regulations because the regulations were implemented after,” Navarro said.
Leaks are not necessarily inevitable. Especially because Elk Hills is in an old oil field and oil fields are full of holes. Not only can leaks be dangerous, but completely negate the entire point of the project in the first place.
“You run the risk of once that carbon is stored underground, there are many, many holes where then that carbon dioxide gas can then come up because naturally that carbon dioxide will want to rise up,” Navarro said.
Moving forward, the California Air Resources Board is drafting up regulations to be followed by anyone something similar in the state.
CARB is also attempting to ease the financial issues.
Its Low Carbon Fuel Standard allows some projects to generate credits for companies. Companies that generate credits can sell them to companies that have deficits under the LCFS and need credits to comply with the program.
“The next step is just to get involved into the regulations of making sure that if this carbon capture and storage technology is starting and has begun to be injected, that we regulate it correctly and that these companies follow all the rules that are being implemented,” Navarro said.
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