Being exposed to concentrated carbon dioxide is like being suffocated by a ghost. You can’t see it, can’t smell it, and the only way to tell you’re being poisoned is because you’re struggling to breathe. If you’re exposed long enough, you will die.
If plans to dramatically expand carbon capture technology to manage greenhouse gas emissions are pursued, it will mean a network of hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometres of concentrated CO2 pipelines running under communities and Indigenous nations, demanding increased attention paid to these emerging risks, experts say.
Carbon capture is becoming a linchpin of Canada’s plan to reduce emissions from its oil and gas sector, but to pull this plan off would require massive investments in necessary infrastructure: pipelines, pressurization stations, equipping carbon capture to bitumen upgraders and more, all of which could fail. In a carbon management strategy, released in 2023, the federal government says to support the country’s emission reduction efforts, carbon capture capacity must grow 270 per cent from current levels by 2030, with “significant further scaling required” to reach net-zero by 2050.
By far the largest project would be the Pathways Alliance’s $16.5-billion flagship carbon capture project, which would include a carbon dioxide pipeline stretching 400 kilometres from the oilsands in northern Alberta to a storage hub about 300 kilometres east of Edmonton.
As countries like Canada plot a dramatic expansion of CO2 pipelines to help deal with rising emissions from the oil and gas sector, which now account for the largest source of emissions in the country, managing safety risks will become increasingly important, because when carbon dioxide pipelines fail, they can fail catastrophically.
According to data from the U.S. Department of Transportation, there have been at least 76 reported safety incidents related to CO2 pipelines since 2010 in the United States. Some incidents are minor and others are disastrous, but all point to the risks of transporting and storing carbon dioxide as a way to manage greenhouse gas emissions.
Canada’s National Observer has mapped the incidents, revealing pipelines operated by Kinder Morgan have the most frequent issues.
One of the worst of those incidents happened in February, 2020, when a CO2 pipeline ruptured near Satartia, Miss., forcing the evacuation of 200 people and hospitalizing 45. Crises like what happened in Mississippi, and other incidents like a CO2 leak at a Wyoming school that forced students to evacuate, point to mounting safety concerns.
CO2 is colourless, odorless and an asphyxiant. It displaces oxygen, meaning that when people are exposed to it they don’t see or smell it coming — they just struggle to breathe until they die or the cloud dissipates. In Satartia, it was the closest of calls, with some residents struggling to remain conscious as they desperately fled.
Jack Willingham, the emergency director for the town’s county, told NPR, “It looked like you were going through the zombie apocalypse.”
The United States has at least 50 CO2 pipelines running more than 8,000 kilometres, while Canada has five major CO2 pipelines stretching a combined 464 kilometers, according to the Canada Energy Regulator. Not yet included in Canada’s CO2 pipeline count are the proposed Pathways project and projects proposed by Wolf Midstream and Whitecap Resources, which are separately planning CO2 pipelines in Alberta and Saskatchewan, respectively.
For Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam, whose territory would be affected by the Pathways Alliance project, safety concerns are top of mind. In an interview with Canada’s National Observer, he said while CO2 pipelines may not be new technology, there are risks that need to be addressed.
“That's why I've been totally against Pathways,” he said. “I think it's going to be detrimental to the environment, it's going to be detrimental to the ecosystem, it's going to have detrimental effects to human health, and when that happens we're going to have to deal with the social impacts and aspects of it all in the future.”
He said he predicts the oil and gas industry will take whatever steps it needs to get its projects approved, like deploying scores of lobbyists. Nonetheless, he expects governments to step in to ensure proper protections are in place.
“Government controls the regulatory system, and that's why we're after the government,” he said.
There are no dedicated regulations for CO2 pipelines at either the federal or provincial levels, according to the University College London. While the Canada Energy Regulator does regulate CO2 pipelines that cross provincial or international borders, the Pathways Alliance project is exclusively in Alberta and would fall under the Alberta Energy Regulator’s (AER) jurisdiction.
Dodging a full assessment
The Pathways Alliance is splitting its megaproject into 126 smaller segments, with multiple applications for various licences with the AER. As previously reported by Canada’s National Observer, that means the project won’t be subject to a full environmental assessment that examines what the impact of the project in its entirety would be.
“The impacts are never being articulated to the public, and that includes impacts on the environment, the climate and Indigenous rights,” said Matt Hulse, a lawyer with Ecojustice collaborating with the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation to call for an impact assessment.
The carbon capture megaproject would cross important waterways such as the Athabasca River, through the Cold Lake air weapons testing range and underneath the reserves of some nations. Each of those could touch federal jurisdiction over species at risk, navigable waterways, federally leased lands and Indigenous constitutional rights.
“So there's a responsibility on the federal government to understand the impacts to those federal lands which they're responsible to,” Hulse said.
In an interview with Canada’s National Observer, federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault said one of his government’s commitments was to “depoliticize” the impact assessment process. Practically, that means deferring to the Impact Assessment Agency for recommendations about whether to designate a project for further study.
“I imagine that people will petition the Impact Assessment Agency to look into it, and the agency will make a recommendation to me,” he said.
“These guys are experts, which is why I followed every one of their recommendations, regardless of my personal inclination towards some of them –– Bay du Nord, for example,” he said, referring to a proposed Newfoundland and Labrador offshore oil project. “If the Impact Assessment Agency looks at that and says ‘Actually it's provincial jurisdiction,’ it would be a political decision by me to say ‘Well, actually, I disagree with the agency’.”
The Pathways Alliance did not return a request for comment.
Kill zones
Whether a federal impact assessment happens, safety concerns will likely persist. In the United States, community groups are actively fighting CO2 pipeline projects by underscoring just how little is understood about the safety risks. Within one minute of a rupture on a 12 to 14 inch diameter pipe, a “kill zone of 760 feet” occurs, according to a North Dakota plume model study.
Alex Tavasoli, a UBC professor in the department of mechanical engineering, told Canada’s National Observer that it’s difficult to promise that any infrastructure is going to be 100 per cent safe at all times.
“Normally regulations and safety protocols don't really get put into place ahead of time until there is a large accident of some sort, when people go, ‘Oh this technology that we hadn't really put that much thought into, it turns out accidents can happen,’” she said. “So maybe we should regulate this or be prepared in a specific way.”
“When it comes to the safety issues of the pipeline itself, pipeline ruptures and leaks happen constantly,” she said. With natural gas pipelines, operators add a sulfur smelling material to alert people of leaks, but CO2 pipeline operators don’t take that safety measure.
But “if the question is whether we should be building CO2 pipelines in the first place, as a carbon mitigation strategy, then that's a different question,” she said.
According to a study from Oil Change International published Thursday, Canada is among the top three financiers of carbon capture and fossil hydrogen projects, having provided US$3.8 billion worth of subsidies to date. At the same time, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, widely considered to be the gold standard for climate science, ranks carbon capture as the most expensive and least effective option to reduce emissions.
-With files from Cloe Logan and Natasha Bulowski
Comments
"If a carbon capture pipeline network is built..."
That's a big "if." It won't happen at large enough scales without a massive increase in already massive public subsidies. And CCS will not ever address Scope 3 emissions from transportation, the majority of it occurring in Canada's export markets.
Sorry you spent so much time on this. Not going to happen. Doesn't pay. Promoting it for now is just a scam to buy a few years.
Who will insure these dangerous CO2 pipelines, given the likelihood of pipeline explosion that will inevitably lead to death and injury? IPCC scientists have concluded that carbon capture and storage is the most costly and least effective option to reduce emissions. Solar and wind are the way to go!