Environmental groups seek Biden moratorium on carbon dioxide pipelines
By Jared Strong, Iowa Capital Dispatch (May 25, 2023)
“There’s no requirement to add an odorant into the pipeline so that the public could know that there is a dangerous level of CO2 that could be asphyxiating them,” said Bill Caram, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust. “We need better regulations to identify the communities that could be impacted in the case of a pipeline failure. Notably, Satartia was not identified by the operator Denbury as being potentially impacted by the failure.”
The Satartia rupture was preceded by heavy rains that caused a landslide around a section of pipe, but Caram said more should be done to reduce subtle, longer-term threats to the integrity of the pipelines.
One of those threats is corrosion that is caused by contaminants. Navigator CO2 Ventures, one of the three companies that proposes a pipeline in Iowa, has said ethanol plants are an ideal source of carbon dioxide because their emissions have reduced contaminants.
“But when we start looking at capturing CO2 from power plants and things like that, there will be more water and other impurities that pose both public health risks and pipeline integrity risks to these pipelines,” Caram said.
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