By ANTHONY HENNEN

The Center Square

Pennsylvania legislators see the future of reducing carbon emissions through capture and sequestration technology.

The idea is to store future emissions to prevent their release into the atmosphere. However, the economic potential of doing so isn’t clearly understood yet.

Instead of storing in Pennsylvania itself, it may be more pragmatic to export captured emissions elsewhere via pipelines. The regulatory environment, too, isn’t settled.

Perhaps most concerning, however, profit in carbon capture and storage is only possible with government subsidies.

The Senate Environmental Resources & Energy Committee met Wednesday for an “informational briefing” to hear about carbon capture’s growth potential, along with some hurdles that could undermine it. Boosters of carbon capture held forth for most of the hearing.

“There’s an immense opportunity for industry, government, non-government organizations, and the broader public to work together to build a new era of manufacturing in the region while safeguarding its natural resources,” said Lee Stockwell, general manager of United States Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage at Shell Energy. “Shell has a deep global commitment to decarbonization.”

Some experts have estimated that carbon capture and storage could become a huge industry.

“Carbon sequestration is a critical building block to get to a carbon-neutral future in the United States,” said Adam Peltz, director and senior attorney for energy transition at the Environmental Defense Fund. “I’ve seen projections that say that, in order to meet net zero, we need a carbon sequestration industry that is the size of today’s oil and gas industry — so you can only imagine how much infrastructure buildout that will require.”

The potential growth has helped carbon capture gain the support of the trades.

“Carbon capture is a long-term solution,” Robert Bair, president of the Pennsylvania Building and Construction Trades Council, said. “Carbon capture will create a lot of jobs in Pennsylvania … if done correctly, we set Pennsylvania on the path to economic prosperity.”

Pennsylvania has about 5,000 miles of carbon-dioxide pipelines, Peltz noted, and some projections estimate that number could massively grow to 100,000 miles.

Years-long permitting delays from the Environmental Protection Agency, however, have caused problems for carbon-capture projects in other states. Wyoming and North Dakota have gained primacy from the EPA over permitting decisions, but the process took almost a decade, Kevin Sunday of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry noted. Pennsylvania intends to apply for primacy as well.

The economic promise of carbon capture, however, isn’t yet proven. So far, the sector has a history of federal subsidies that have not panned out.

In 2018, a federal tax credit expansion led to dozens of new projects, as The Center Square previously reported. Coal- and industrial-related carbon-capture projects, however, were criticized by the Government Accountability Office due to the Department of Energy’s “high-risk selection and negotiation process” and its “bypassing of cost controls.”

Without federal money, carbon capture infrastructure wouldn’t get built.

“There is so much federal money that’s being pushed toward this,” Peltz said. “None of this would be economic at all without federal tax credits.”

Despite the reliance on taxpayer funding to make projects work, carbon capture projects have gained some bipartisan support.

“Carbon capture promotes Pennsylvania and creates literally tens of thousands of jobs in Pennsylvania,” said Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Williamsport. “That’s why I support it.”

For some, the argument is settled because action is needed to reduce environmental harm.

“It seems that we’re way beyond the point where we’re saying ‘is this a good idea?’,” said Sen. Carolyn Comitta, D-West Chester. “As Mr. Peltz said, (carbon capture, utilization, and storage) is a critical building block to get to net zero — and we can’t do it without carbon capture.”

Trusting carbon capture to work, though, requires relying on companies that have been penalized for violating environmental laws.

“I’m confused on how we can do this safely when Shell itself has never demonstrated to safely operate the cracker plant, as you just paid a $10 million fine and were shut down … why should we trust you?” said Sen. Katie Muth, D-Royersford. “You exceeded your yearly allowable emissions within 2 months … part of the problem with the current infrastructure of fossil fuel operations in Pennsylvania is that we do not have adequate government oversight.”