Don't let carbon capture, hydrogen mania cost LA

It’s not going so well for climate alarmists in Louisiana at the other end of the continuum, either.

While one strand of alarmism focuses on a ruthless propagation of non-fossil fuel-based sources for energy, no matter the costs or inconvenience, another seeks to mitigate fossil fuel outputs, such as carbon and methane, by circumventing or diverting production of these in the energy production process. Two such tools in pursuit of the latter are hydrogen and carbon capture use and sequestration.

Hydrogen can be used as a method to carry another fuel or by itself, burning without natural carbon dioxide or methane release unless the process of its production – it rarely exists in nature purely, so otherwise it has to be detached from some other elements like from oxygen in water – causes this. CCS works around processing release by collecting it before atmospheric emission, in making hydrogen or straight combustion.

Louisiana alarmists like Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards recently have seen setbacks in renewable energy production possibilities in the state such as offshore wind, but have continued to pin their hopes on hydrogen and CCUS. Inflaming this has been a decision by Air Products, with his administration’s approval, to open a hydrogen production facility in Ascension Parish and employ CCUS on it for storage under Lake Maurepas in Livingston Parish.

Because of extreme inefficiency in producing hydrogen and high expense inherent to CCUS, the whole idea is riotously expensive, and to date Louisiana government has wisely merely set up regulatory frameworks for these without any subsidization. Unfortunately, the mania of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming has saturated Washington Democrats, who when they had power in all majoritarian branches passed measure that do provide federal subsidies which apparently is good enough for Air Products.

It could be worse. Last month, the state with two others learned they lost out on a joint bid that could have received up to $1.25 billion dollars to supplement hydrogen production. That infrastructure won’t happen, but at least taxpayers dodged a bullet: part of the deal would have required the states to put up an amount equal to the grant.

But even if Louisiana isn’t wasting taxpayer dollars on something that should stand or fall in the private sector without government intervention, there’s still a safety issue, which prompted the formation of a special legislative committee to study the issue which met this week. Livingston Parish residents are particularly uneasy about the Air Products plan, which will run carbon dioxide out and about in a series of pipes that if something went wrong could replicate a disaster almost two years ago in Satartia, MS that sent dozens to hospital with carbon dioxide poisoning, the aftereffects of which still plague some victims.

Even some climate alarmists don’t like hydrogen and CCS, together or separately. Purists say the production or transport of hydrogen with fossil fuels allows for carbon release which they are convinced will doom the planet, so dire is the amount of CO₂ already in the atmosphere and predicted to be belched out.

If the private sector wants to throw money in Louisiana at these technologies, the state should let it but not aid it with tax dollars. Instead, it should expand upon recent legislation to grant more oversight for safety and benefits to local governments over CCUS encapsulated in Act 378 passed this year. And, it should finish off the rulemaking process to gain greater state control over regulating the kinds of wells (Class VI) used in the CCUS process, or taking “primacy” over the federal government. Misplaced panic over phantom CAGW shouldn’t waste tax dollars, create unsafe condition, or run roughshod over local concerns.