The Sun Times’ recent editorial “Pipe nightmare? Put safety in place before transporting carbon dioxide to Illinois” questioned the safety and need for two new pipeline projects being developed to transport and sequester CO2 in Illinois. The good news: answers to those questions already exist.
The projects mentioned are not enabling the use of fossil fuels. Navigator CO2’s Heartland Greenway and Wolf Carbon Solutions’ project were primarily initiated to capture carbon otherwise released into the atmosphere from corn being processed into ethanol. They’re also set to capture carbon emissions released during fertilizer production.
Ethanol greatly benefits Midwestern farmers. Thanks to these pipeline projects, low carbon ethanol produced by Illinois farmers will benefit the state’s economy even more given the premium a growing number of states are willing to pay for its use in their transportation sectors.
Sequestering carbon is nothing new. ADM has successfully buried carbon deep underground for years in the same Illinois geologic formation Navigator and Wolf are targeting. The carbon is injected miles below ground, becoming part of the existing rock for perpetuity. Successful carbon sequestration has been happening around the world for decades.
CO2 pipelines, too, are nothing new. Our nation’s existing CO2 pipeline network is over 5,000 miles long, operating safely every day. Those pipelines are tightly regulated by the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).
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PHMSA affirmed its oversight earlier this year before the Illinois Commerce Commission, clarifying that it regulates the safety of interstate CO2 pipelines just as it oversees liquid petroleum and natural gas pipelines. Companies operating these systems must meet a slew of federal rules, including annual accident and safety related condition reporting, design, construction, pressure testing, operation and maintenance, qualification of pipeline personnel, and corrosion control requirements.
Make no mistake: CO2 pipelines are critical to achieving the Biden administration’s admirable climate reduction goals. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who oversees PHMSA, recently said carbon could eventually be “the lion’s share of what’s moving through pipelines in America.” Notably, the secretary has not endorsed the need for a temporary moratorium.
CO2 pipelines are proven to work and offer an invaluable lifeline to lower industrial carbon emissions. We should prioritize our future and embrace them now.
James R. Watson, executive director, American Petroleum Institute Illinois
Kennedy construction shows Chicago isn’t ‘city that works’
The three-year Kennedy Expressway construction project reflects all that is wrong with Chicago. It has made the highway a parking lot, making the trip from O’Hare to downtown sometimes take almost three hours. And watch, three years will become five years.
But what gets me most is here we are in summer — the heart of construction season — and no work is done on weekends. Little to no work is done at nighttime. Ho hum. In the south, they’d be working double shifts around the clock to do the job quick and right, minimizing inconvenience.
And perhaps the worst part, we have been so conditioned to take and accept this as normal that nobody even questions anything anymore. Pure resignation.
Once upon a time, Chicago was the city of broad shoulders, the city that works. Today it’s the city of broad excuses and apathy.
William Choslovsky, Clybourn Corridor
