The Trump administration, along with the oil and gas industry wish to scale back environmental regulations put into place by the Biden Administration, with one exception – carbon capture for drilling purposes and sequestration (pumping it deep into the ground and storing it forever).
It appears the Trump administration may keep a single tax credit funded in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), known as 45Q, that increases a tax credit for any company willing to capture carbon dioxide – better known as “plant food.”
This tax credit is supported by some in the oil and gas industry, as well as Trump’s Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum and Kristi Noem, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and former governor of South Dakota.
The process for capturing carbon is both expensive and unprofitable. That’s why Biden increased the maximum tax credit for every ton of carbon dioxide captured from $50 to $85 and if the intent was to store it in the ground forever the tax credit per ton is $60.
$60 per ton is the same amount paid to an oil company using the carbon-capture technology to pump it down into the well while drilling to produce more oil. When the technology is used in this way, it has a benefit to the economy. According to an MSN story, “the Department of Energy has said that, if carbon capture was used to its fullest extent to enhance oil recovery, the American petroleum industry could extract the equivalent of 38 years’ worth of the country’s current crude-oil supply.”
But when it is being captured, liquified, and piped 2500 miles across condemned private lands to be stored underground, it has no public benefit. It does, however, allow those grifting off the green new scam to make a lot of money.
The IRA allocated $369 billion for “climate and energy” spending, which is where the funding for carbon capture comes from.
Where this intersects with private property are the pipelines needed to transport the carbon to locations for storing it underground. This is different than using the product to extract more oil and gas from otherwise spent wells. Carbon dioxide is an odorless and colorless gas and in high concentrations it becomes an asphyxiant. When pumped, the gas is highly pressurized where it becomes a liquid and can be transported through the pipeline.
These pipelines will all be crossing private farmland in multiple states and if a rupture occurs, it turns back into a gas that is heavier than air, where it stays on the ground and seeks the lowest elevation. It replaces breathable air and causes serious injury or death to whomever is in its path.
This is the fight South Dakota landowners have waged against Navigator CO2 Ventures and Summit Carbon Solutions. In 2023, over 100 landowners in South Dakota had their land condemned by Summit for the pipeline even before the company received State approval to build the line, which they still have not secured.
The federal government through the carbon sequestration tax credits are picking the winners and losers. In this case, America’s small landowners lose big. And for what? For proponents to be able to claim they produce net zero emissions – and profit off the green scam.
You can read more here:
A Contrarian take: Why Trump’s Second Term Could Unexpectedly Advance the Energy Transition by Stephen V. Arbogast
Trump Could Start a New Pipeline Fight
Trump’s Energy ‘Emergency’ Sets Up Carbon Capture As a Solution
