Prairie farmers draw attention to dangers of carbon capture and storage
Aiming to reduce their emissions, oil and gas corporations are looking to carbon capture and storage (CCS) as the solution. CCS works as it is named: CCS captures carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from industrial production, transporting these emissions through pipelines, and storing them in underground rock formations, oftentimes saltwater aquifers.
CCS projects pose a number of risks to human, animal, and environmental health. Pipeline ruptures pose asphyxiation risks from CO2, as well as contamination risks from toxic chemicals such as hydrogen sulfide, which is carried alongside CO2. Concerns also have been raised about CCS storage facilities leaking and leading to dissolution of CO2 into groundwater. The dissolution of CO2 in water creates carbonic acid, which is unsafe for both humans and livestock.
Under pressure from a coalition of farm groups, the Queensland Government in Australia has banned CCS projects in the Great Artesian Basin, the country’s largest groundwater basin, in order to protect its environmental, agricultural, economic, and cultural significance.
“Geological carbon capture and so-called ‘storage’ is no solution at all to climate change,” says NFU Board Member Glenn Norman. “Nearly all attempts to date have failed and leaked to the surface contaminating both ground and surface water.”
Members of the National Farmers Union adopted the following resolution at the NFU’s National Convention last November: “[the NFU] opposes the use of CCS projects to extend the social license of fossil fuel corporations to continue with their ‘business-as-usual’ operations.” While CCS is touted as a climate solution, 70% of U.S. pipelines transporting CO2 are used for enhanced oil recovery – using captured CO2 to pump more oil and gas out of wells. The resolution also opposed the use of public money to support industrial CCS projects.
The NFU, in collaboration with other groups, is focusing its attention on the Cold Lake CCS Project.
The NFU is in solidarity with local agriculture groups and First Nations who are working in opposition to the Cold Lake CCS Project. The NFU also demands that the Federal Government complete an Impact Assessment on all sections of the Cold Lake CCS Project, as the Government of Alberta has refused to do so.
“Carbon Capture aids and abets the priorities of the oil and gas sector, which prioritizes unsustainable extraction and exploitation. In solidarity with farmers and the Indigenous peoples affected by the Cold Lake CCS Project we must understand that is not in their interests. When we make connections to what Albertans have endured: the droughts, the wildfires, the smoke and poor yields, to the risks of CCS, it is clear that the Cold Lake Project does not benefit us.” Says NFU Youth President Adama Bundu.
