The U.S. Forest Service’s recent proposal to store carbon dioxide beneath national forests and grasslands is a subject that demands a scrutinizing eye. This plan, although framed as a stride towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions, introduces several practical and environmental concerns.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service today announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would allow the agency to consider proposals for potential carbon capture and sequestration projects on national forests and grasslands. This proposal would harmonize the framework between the federal government’s two largest land managers by aligning with regulatory structures already established for the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency/newsroom/releases/usda-forest-service-proposes-rule-facilitate-carbon-capture-and
The core idea involves capturing carbon dioxide emissions and transporting them for underground storage in forest areas. The proposition, as stated, aims to support the Administration’s goal of cutting emissions. However, the feasibility and impact of such an endeavor warrant a closer examination.
Transporting CO2 to forests necessitates constructing extensive pipelines, a point underscored by Boston University research fellow June Sekera:
“To get the CO2 to the injection site in the midst of our national forest, they’ve got to build huge pipelines.”
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/20/1211439763/the-u-s-has-a-controversial-plan-to-store-carbon-dioxide-under-the-nations-fores
This introduces a rather ironic scenario where forest land could be compromised for the sake of environmental protection.
Safety is a critical issue often sidelined in the broader discussion. The risks associated with CO2 pipelines, exemplified by the incident in Satartia, Mississippi, cannot be overlooked. Victoria Bogdan Tejeda from the Center for Biological Diversity underscores the hazards of CO2 as an asphyxiant, which are heightened by the remote nature of forest locations.
Carbon capture and storage often doesn’t work well, says Bruce Robertson, an independent energy finance analyst. “They are not capturing at the rates they said they would capture and they don’t store at the rate they were supposed to store,” he says.
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/20/1211439763/the-u-s-has-a-controversial-plan-to-store-carbon-dioxide-under-the-nations-fores
The resistance from local communities against CO2 pipelines, highlighted by the cancellation of Navigator CO2’s pipeline project, signals a broader disapproval of such initiatives. The Forest Service’s approach, which could potentially override local concerns, brings up issues of transparency and accountability in policy decisions.
In response to these multifaceted concerns, the Forest Service, through press officer Scott Owen, assures a thorough secondary screening for proposals.
He writes that any proposals must still pass through a secondary screening, adding: “The Forest Service has been ‘screening’ proposals for use of National Forest System lands for over 20 years as a means to be increasingly consistent in our processes and also be able to reject those uses that are incompatible with the management of the public’s land.”
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/20/1211439763/the-u-s-has-a-controversial-plan-to-store-carbon-dioxide-under-the-nations-fores
However, this procedural assurance does little to address the more profound questions of environmental integrity and technological viability.
The proposal to store carbon dioxide under U.S. forests is a complex and potentially dangerous issue that requires a critical examination beyond surface-level intentions. The implications of implementing such a plan, both environmentally and logistically, are significant and must be thoroughly evaluated.
The public comment period is open until January 2, 2024, it is an opportunity for critical public discourse on the drawbacks of such environmental strategies.
H/T Yooper
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FFS, just release the CO2 in the general vicinity of the trees, they’ll happily store it. Unbelievable, Jeff!
Absolutely not. If CO2 can be safely stored in the National forests it can also be safely stored on site. There is no reason to be piping CO2 around the country. If you have a use for CO2 build your facility near the source of CO2.
Aside from the insanity of storing CO2 for any reason other than having it on hand for future use, when/if the quantity required at any particular time might be greater than the amount that can be produced within the necessary time frame, or within a reasonable cost vs benefit, your idea that CO2 could be stored near its source in quantities and for time frames that would make even the slightest difference is totally without merit or reason.
I don’t think it should be stored but if you are going to store it store it at the source, no need to pipe it into national forests.
Remind the left why they hate pipelines: they leak even before they are built.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/03/13/ocasio-cortez-blames-pipeline-that-hasnt-been-built-yet-for-an-oil-spill/
“thorough secondary screening of proposals”. I feel so much better.
Totally surreal how everything could be sooooo misunderstood, an utterly wrong ‘correction’ applied with end result that The Whole World is impoverished. This is suicidal madness unfolding all around us.
As regards the forest, simply feed the trees that are already there and they’ll soak up your CO₂
Not like that is going to make a single jot of difference to whatever anyone imagines ‘climate’ to be.
But the trees will alter the local weather when you feed them,
They do this because (yes CO₂ is involved but is incidental), trees are humongous water storage devices – and when they store water, they store heat energy.
Not only within themselves but within the ground they are growing in.
How they affect the local weather is that they are not only (sun)light sensitive but are temperature sensitive.
They drink rain directly, they absorb nighttime humidity, they pump it in and out of the soil.
If they get hot they release water to cool themselves and have sufficient grunt/power/size/capability to create clouds and rain.
It is No Accident that trees are the size/design/structure that they are
Embrace Gaia even if just for a few minutes – reset your thinking. Get Cause & Effect the correct way round for a change.
The real beauty of rain is that it falls directly back down onto them after it has dumped the extra/unwanted heat energy – thus the trees can use the same water again tomorrow, next week/month/season to keep cool and or through the night, keep warm.
Yes they do. Through the night they soak up atmospheric moisture and the latent heat (of evaporation) is released, This keeps the forest floor warmer than it would be as a grassland or desert.
ANYBODY on this Earth can buy a simple thermometer and go out and measure/record that happening yet Nobody Does. Why not, what are you frightened of?
Where the hell are Climate Scientists on this? Or Citizen scientists, kindergarten teachers, schools and universities for that matter.
Nowhere. That’s where, dazzled equally by their own brilliance and that of Re-radiated Energy
But no, everybody appeases the self-proclaimed haha ‘scientists’, they fawn over computers, drool over Sputniks and argue endlessly about phlogiston and dancing angels.
IOW. Turkeys vote for Christmas yet when it looks like it’s ‘coming up fast’, decide to change their minds
Sorry: Appeasers get exactly what they deserve = Christmas followed by an eternity in a Very Cold Place
As the Citizens of Ancient Rome discovered when they destroyed their trees.
If you really do want to build a pipeline into a forest, use it to take some seawater there
Feed the trees some ocean water at about 4 gallons per square metre (per year) and they will love you to bits.
Yet again, your kindergarten lied to you.
If you want to spoil them rotten and want to see them emulate a Shuttle or Saturn 5 Launch, mix some ocean-floor mud into that water.
Then start building nukes to roast Limestone to get some CO₂ back into the sky.
Tree roots need oxygen. Any small leaks of stupidly “sequestered” CO2 could kill hugs areas of forest. This is stupid-squared. The Forest Service is looking for large handouts of “green” money, that’s all.