West Texas residents protested against a proposed massive carbon sequestration project at an EPA meeting Thursday, saying the federal government should take more time to consider the permit applications for the Occidental Petroleum facility in the heart of U.S. oil country.
The pushback against Occidental’s Brown Pelican sequestration project shows the hurdles oil industry faces as it promotes carbon sequestration as a way to neutralize greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change. The three planned wells would feed carbon dioxide from Stratos, the largest direct air capture facility currently planned in the United States, into underground storage.
Occidental Chief Executive Vicki Hollub has said the project is the type that would “preserve” the oil industry by helping to reduce carbon emissions from oil production.
But critics of the burgeoning carbon sequestration industry also pointed to a leak at a Archer Daniels Midland carbon dioxide sequestration site in Illinois.
