A large leak at the country’s first commercial site for storing carbon dioxide underground is threatening to undermine a nascent technology to fight climate change.
More than 150 environmental groups are urging the Biden administration to press pause on carbon sequestration, a technique that injects planet-warming pollution into saline aquifers to keep it out of the atmosphere, writes Carlos Anchondo.
“The risks associated with carbon capture and storage… are too great to ignore,” the groups wrote in a letter today to the Environmental Protection Agency that asks for boosted oversight and “more rigorous permitting.”
The White House has been counting on the fledgling technology to help polluting industries curb their greenhouse gas emissions. Democrats’ 2022 climate law included billions of dollars to deploy the technology to hasten the nation’s climate goals.
But now EPA is reassessing more than 100 pending permit applications for injection wells after an underground carbon capture and storage reservoir in Decatur, Illinois — owned and operated by agribusiness giant Archer-Daniels-Midland — leaked nearly 8,000 metric tons of liquid carbon into the rock formation above.
The liquid remains roughly 5,000 feet below the surface and has not affected local drinking water sources, a company spokesperson said. The company halted all injections after detecting a second possible leak at a monitoring well last month.
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