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Costly climate ‘solutions’ look like more pollution in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’

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Monday, July 29, 2024

It was a muggy morning in late April when a handful of local residents and grassroots organizers huddled in a church parking lot to strategize, before knocking on doors with information about the latest environmental threat facing St Rose, a predominantly Black community in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley”.It was not the first time Kimbrelle Eugene Kyereh had campaigned for better regulation of the choking sprawl of fossil fuel and petrochemical facilities that surround St Rose – and countless other communities up and down the Mississippi River.But this marked the first time residents have grappled with a toxic chemical facility that its operators claim to be a clean energy innovator and that stands to benefit from taxpayer subsidies and unprecedented tax credits supposedly designed to tackle the climate emergency.Kyereh informed neighbors that international investors want to build a “blue” ammonia and “clean” hydrogen plant across the fence line – on the same site as a crude oil storage and export terminal which residents say spews noxious fumes that make it hard to breathe.Ammonia is a toxic substance made by stripping hydrogen from fossil gas and nitrogen from air, and is mostly used for synthetic fertilizer. The St Charles Clean Fuels (SCCF) project claims it will capture and sequester the carbon dioxide (CO2), the planet-warming greenhouse gas generated as a byproduct, making its ammonia cleaner or “blue”.Randy Moses, at home in St Rose, Louisiana, opposes the proposed ammonia plant next to an existing oil facility.In theory, the waste CO2 will be compressed, transported in special pipelines and injected deep into underground rock formations for storage, ostensibly forever, for which the company would qualify for federal tax credits for each ton of carbon stored. The SCCF project says that the ammonia will be sold for fertilizer feedstock or so-called “blue” hydrogen – promoted as a “clean” fuel by the fossil fuel industry, which also earns tax credits for it.“The SCCF low carbon approach is expected to reduce CO2 equivalent emissions by more than 90% compared to traditional ammonia production … Financing and building infrastructure that deploys cleaner solutions like blue ammonia is essential to fighting climate change,” said a spokesperson for the SCCF project, which is majority-owned by a Danish investment company.But industry claims about the climate credentials of “blue” hydrogen and ammonia have been debunked by scientists without fossil fuel ties. The process depends on fossil gas, a major driver of global heating, as a raw material and energy source – which both emits CO2 and leads to substantial upstream emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.“‘Blue’ hydrogen is a marketing scam, pure and simple. The facts do not back up industry hype,” said Robert Howarth, professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University, and co-author of a seminal study discrediting industry claims about hydrogen.“The best any plant has done for net CO2 capture is 25% to 30%, and that’s before the very potent methane [leaks]. The 90% capture rate the industry claims is pure nonsense,” Howarth added.In addition, ammonia production generates air pollutants such as nitrogen oxide, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds – a toxic mix already choking residents in Cancer Alley. CO2, itself an asphyxiant and intoxicant, also poses a threat as leaks can cause injury or death by replacing oxygen in the air – which makes St Rose residents Randy and Dedra Moses fear for the safety of their grandchildren.Out canvassing, some locals were dismayed by prospects of another polluting facility while others hoped it would bring jobs. At one house, a retired teacher with a heart condition was anxious that the air quality could get even worse and signed the petition, promising to attend the forthcoming community meetings. Kyereh did her best to stay positive and moved on to the next house, but the 54-year-old was worried.A house in St Rose next to the IMTT oil storage facility in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley“It feels doomful, like we’re going in the wrong direction. They are claiming to save the planet but at our expense. If the ammonia or CO2 leaks, we will be sitting ducks. We are the sacrifice zone and we feel it,” she said.The St Rose ammonia plant is among at least 141 carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects currently proposed by the oil, gas and petrochemical industries across the US, according to the Oil and Gas Watch tracker. (Additional CCS projects associated with coal and ethanol plants aren’t included.)It’s a scam that will enrich the oil and gas and petrochemical industries furtherEloise Reid of the Louisiana Against False Solutions CoalitionExperts warn that the CCS and the “clean” hydrogen boom amount to a costly climate gamble unleashed by unprecedented federal spending and tax breaks in the Biden administration’s landmark climate and infrastructure legislation – which will almost certainly prolong the use of fossil fuels.The history of CCS has largely been one of “underperformance” and “unmet expectations”, the International Energy Agency said in 2023.Climate scientists agree that the only way to curtail further catastrophic global heating is to radically cut greenhouse gas emissions by transitioning off fossil fuels, yet CCS depends on fossil fuels, emits greenhouse gases and can be used to extract more oil.Three-quarters of the carbon currently captured in the US is used to extract hard-to-reach reserves, known as “enhanced oil recovery”. Data on carbon storage – which must be permanent to be effective – is entirely self-reported by corporations, with no independent oversight in place to check for leaks or verify company claims, according to research by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP).“Every dollar invested in CCS rather than renewable energy is a wasted dollar … It’s a scam,” said Charles Harvey, professor of environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Harvey co-founded the first private CCS startup 15 years ago but has since said that he was wrong – that CCS technology is inefficient and cannot deliver.Kimbrelle Eugene Kyereh canvassing in St Rose, Louisiana.Louisiana is at the center of the decarbonization boom, accounting for more than a third of the proposed projects, which include 11 hydrogen or ammonia plants, three liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals and three gas processing plants, according to Oil and Gas Watch figures.Advocates say the proposed new projects will lead to more air pollution – and more greenhouse gases – in a region with some of the worst air quality and cancer rates in the country, and which is already suffering mounting climate impacts including extreme heat, increasingly intense hurricanes, sea level rise and drought.“It’s a scam that will enrich the oil and gas and petrochemical industries further, prolonging their ability to destroy livelihoods and community health, poison fenceline communities and perpetuate climate change – while environmental justice communities are left to jump through loopholes for funding to minimize the harms,” said Eloise Reid, coordinator of the Louisiana Against False Solutions Coalition.St Rose, Louisiana, community organizer Rose Wilright.Yet the Biden administration – and the Louisiana state government – is betting on CCS and hydrogen to meet its climate goals, despite evidence that the technology is inefficient and unproven as a reliable climate solution.Over the past couple of years, the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries have flooded the state legislature with lobbyists, executives and friendly experts to thwart community and environmental group efforts from properly regulating CCS.Louisiana’s part-time lawmakers, who earn $16,000 a year and have only one staffer each, rely heavily on lobbyists for policymaking, according to Jackson Voss, the climate policy coordinator for the Alliance for Affordable Energy (AAE).Earlier this year, state senator Michael “Big Mike” Fesi proposed legislation to exclude gas pipelines from the “right to know” law, which requires companies to share information about leaks of hazardous materials. Fesi is the owner of a major pipeline construction and maintenance contractor.In 2022, the Louisiana legislature passed a law exempting state employees hired to perform geoscientific work – which is key to safe carbon injection and storage – from requiring board certification. (Florists and hair braiders are legally required to pass a written exam and obtain a state license.) Studies have shown that CCS risks causing earthquakes, and Louisiana has several fault lines, with more than a hundred earthquakes registered since 1990.The view over the St Rose community’s fence line, directly behind the home of Randy and Dedra Moses.A taskforce set up to ostensibly address mounting public concerns about CCS and report back to the state senate by February 2024 was composed of five oil and gas attorneys and an academic with industry ties. Its report has not been published.The vast majority of bills which could have made the proposed build-out safer and more environmentally just have been thrown out, ignored or watered down.“It’s like the fox watching the hen house,” said former oil worker Justin Solet, a member of the United Houma Nation and organizing fellow with Healthy Gulf, an environmental justice organization.In arguably the biggest victory so far for CCS proponents, in December the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) handed over regulatory oversight – or primacy – for CO2 injection wells to the Louisiana department of energy and natural resources (LDENR), an under-resourced agency which has been criticized for failing to enforce existing regulations meant to protect the environment and people from oil and gas wells.In terms of political capture, Louisiana is absolutely a petrostate.Jackson Voss of the Alliance for Affordable EnergyLouisiana is a Republican-dominated state. But the application for primacy, which is being legally challenged by environmental groups, was made by the former Democratic governor, who put CCS at the heart of the state’s climate action plan. John Bel Edwards also led a delegation to the 2021 UN climate summit in Scotland, to promote the state as open for CCS business.St Rose community organizer Randy Moses on the rail track that separates his home from an industrial facility.His Republican successor, Jeff Landry, who was elected in 2023 after a record low turnout, has expanded access to state tax breaks and appointed fossil fuel insiders to key roles. This includes Tyler Gray, an oil and gas attorney and former president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association (Lmoga), the state’s most prominent industry trade group and a key CCS proponent, to lead the LDENR. As Lmoga president, in 2018 Gray helped draft a law criminalizing protests near oil and gas pipelines and construction sites.“The fossil fuel and petrochemical industry has had a grip on our state for a very long time. The support for oil and gas, and now CCS and hydrogen, goes across party lines, with very little opposition despite community concerns,” said Jackson Voss of the AAE. “In terms of political capture, Louisiana is absolutely a petrostate.”The Louisiana governor’s office, the LDENR and Lmoga did not respond to requests for comment.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionSt Rose is an unincorporated town of 6,000 people in St Charles parish – which extends over both banks of the Mississippi River in the 85-mile-long (135km-long) heavy industrial stretch of land known as Cancer Alley.St Rose was founded around 1880 by a group of formerly enslaved families as a free town called Elkinsville, creating a thriving, close-knit agrarian community surrounded by plantations which were later sold off to fossil fuel and petrochemical companies.The SCCF plant would be located on the site of a former sugar plantation now owned by lnternational-Matex Tank Terminals (IMTT), which would store and handle the ammonia. Residents of the area closest to the proposed site have a higher risk of respiratory disease from pollution exposure than 96% of other Louisiana residents, according to recent EPA data. Hurricane Ida ripped through the community in 2021, and some homes are still covered by the temporary roofs installed in the aftermath of the category 4 storm.“As plantations became petrochemical plants, small free towns like Elkinsville became fenceline communities most exposed to the toxic pollution. Now Biden’s signature climate legislation is exacerbating this racial inequality in toxic harm by subsidizing the CCS buildout,” said Michael Levien, a sociologist from Johns Hopkins University researching the social consequences of CCS in Louisiana.“St Rose epitomizes this, but it’s the same pattern up and down the river.”Lake Maurepas, a protected body of water in south-eastern Louisiana. The chemical company Air Products wants to store millions of tons of carbon dioxide under the lakebed.A staggering 90% of the proposed “blue” hydrogen plants nationwide are located in low-income disadvantaged communities, according to the Oil and Gas Watch tracker.The SCCF project said the plant would bring “significant future opportunities” to the local economy, and represents a shift to “clean fuels and clean fertilizer production that benefits both the regional community and cleaner energy supply needs”.IMTT’s CEO, Carlin Conner, said the company has committed to invest over $1.6m in environmental mitigation measures at its St Rose facility, and regularly meets with local residents to address their concerns.According to its proponents, Louisiana’s geological formation and existing industry infrastructure make it ideal for the capture and storage of CO2 – whereas critics argue that this is precisely what makes Louisiana so risky.Historically, Louisiana was one of the largest oil and gas producers in the country, with 180,000 known abandoned wells scattered across the state including more than 28,000 unplugged wells. Two-thirds of abandoned wells are located in rock formation areas where carbon could potentially be stored, according to EIP research.Of most concern are the 13,000 oldest and leakiest wells, located in potential carbon sequestration hotspots. CO2 plumes could migrate directly via the abandoned wells, like methane does, contaminating surface water and displacing oxygen in the air – which can be fatal.Bill Whittington, Lisa Hoover and Mayhew Barnum boating on Lake Maurepas. They belong to the Lake Maurepas Preservation Society, founded in 2023 to fight a proposed CCS project.In a recent field experiment, the Guardian accompanied researchers from Healthy Gulf who detected methane leaking from an orphaned well (abandoned with no known owner) in a lake close to where carbon injection sites have been proposed in a separate project.“Fishermen, not the LDENR [state agency], are managing these wells. Louisiana is not prepared for primacy [oversight]. We need two decades to clean up the existing oil and gas junk infrastructure before we even think about injecting CO2, it’s such a mess,” said Scott Eustice, community science director at Healthy Gulf. “Plugging leaking wells would be far more effective in mitigating climate change than CCS.”Several proposed pipelines and injection sites across Louisiana could affect protected wetlands and other waterways, as well as burial sites and other historical locations for Indigenous and Black enslaved people.Leaky wells aren’t the only threat. CO2 pipelines already pose a major safety concern with higher rates of safety incidents compared with other pipelines, according to Fractracker.The Prop Stop Inn, a old bar only accessible by boat on the Tickfaw River, which flows into Lake Maurepas.The current 5,000-mile (8,000km) network of CO2 pipelines could increase tenfold under the proposed boom, and safety experts fear that the rush to build out new infrastructure to qualify for the Inflation Reduction Act tax subsidies will compromise safety.“Current regulations are insufficient to protect the public and the environment from the potential dangers of hydrogen and carbon dioxide pipelines,” said Erin Sutherland, the Pipeline Safety Trust policy and program director. “Many have been proposed near communities, placing them at risk in the event of failure.”Recent CO2 pipeline leaks in Louisiana and Mississippi have exposed dangerous gaps in the regulatory system, which is undergoing a drawn-out overhaul. The regulator will not be able to apply new design, construction and inspection standards to completed pipelines.“CCS is not going to mitigate the climate crisis; it will lead to further expansion of fossil fuels and more hazardous waste causing further harm to frontline communities and the planet,” said Monique Harden, director of law and public policy at the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice.Lisa Hoover of the Lake Maurepas Preservation Society. Photograph: Rita Harper/The GuardianBack in St Rose, Kimbrelle Eugene Kyereh is cognisant of the role racism has played in creating environmental justice communities in Louisiana, and fears the CCS and hydrogen expansion will lead to more of the same. “We need to get white and middle-class people involved, so it’s not just poor Black people complaining – or we won’t win,” she said.But corporations are vying for a slice of the billions in grants earmarked for new CCS and “clean” hydrogen projects – with billions more up for grabs in tax credits. So no community is safe.About 30 miles (50km) north-east of St Rose in a separate project, the chemical giant Air Products is looking to drill dozens of wells in Lake Maurepas, an iconic protected water body, and inject around 5m tons of carbon dioxide each year about a mile below the lakebed.They’re trying to destroy the lake and ram this project down our throatsBill Whittington, president of the Lake Maurepas Preservation SocietyThe CO2 would come from the vast new “blue” hydrogen energy and ammonia complex that Air Products wants to build in Ascension parish, a sprawling dusty landscape where more Black communities are already overburdened by industrial pollution, including from the world’s largest ammonia plant.Air Products claims it will capture and permanently sequester more than 95% of the waste CO2 generated at the facility. The gas will travel about 35 miles (60km) east in newly constructed pipelines, before being injected into an “ideal geological pore space” – a process that environmentalists fear will threaten Lake Maurepas’s fragile swampy ecosystem. Millions of dollars have been invested in restoring the lake, which after generations of ecological destruction has become a popular destination for tourists and fishers.The project, which was announced in 2021 before Biden’s key climate legislation, claims it will be the world’s largest CCS operation. Lakeside residents say they found out about the proposed wells when a crabber spotted engineers conducting seismic tests, and created the Lake Maurepas Preservation Society. Its members, who are predominantly climate change skeptics and pro-fossil fuel white Republicans, participated in House and Senate committee hearings and galvanized parish council members and state legislators to oppose the project.‘They’re trying to destroy the lake and ram this project down our throats,’ said Bill Whittington, president of the Lake Maurepas Preservation Society and a former oil company worker.Air Products pushed back by hiring 25 lobbyists in 2023, and sued Tangipahoa parish, overturning the local CCS moratorium that would have protected Lake Maurepas. Legislation to protect the lake and strengthen environmental protections at the state level has gone nowhere.St Rose community organizer Rose Wilright outside her house.“The fight against Air Products has demonstrated the political capture on both sides of the aisle in the state legislature,” said Kim Coates, a Republican state legislator and former Tangipahoa parish council member.Air Products said the facility would not be a major source of emissions and that the company will “fully comply” with all air quality permit requirements and other relevant standards. The company has invested in steps to protect and enhance the lake and “blue” hydrogen will help meet carbon reduction goals, a spokesperson said.“A lot of people around here don’t believe in climate change and CO2, but even if you do, CCS will barely make a difference,” said Caleb Atwell, vice-president of the Lake Maurepas Preservation Society. “We did everything to save our lake, we gave it our best shot, but it’s over.”

Corporations and politicians are pushing carbon capture despite big questions over its value as residents in the southern ‘petrostate’ fear the worstIt was a muggy morning in late April when a handful of local residents and grassroots organizers huddled in a church parking lot to strategize, before knocking on doors with information about the latest environmental threat facing St Rose, a predominantly Black community in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley”.It was not the first time Kimbrelle Eugene Kyereh had campaigned for better regulation of the choking sprawl of fossil fuel and petrochemical facilities that surround St Rose – and countless other communities up and down the Mississippi River. Continue reading...

It was a muggy morning in late April when a handful of local residents and grassroots organizers huddled in a church parking lot to strategize, before knocking on doors with information about the latest environmental threat facing St Rose, a predominantly Black community in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley”.

It was not the first time Kimbrelle Eugene Kyereh had campaigned for better regulation of the choking sprawl of fossil fuel and petrochemical facilities that surround St Rose – and countless other communities up and down the Mississippi River.

But this marked the first time residents have grappled with a toxic chemical facility that its operators claim to be a clean energy innovator and that stands to benefit from taxpayer subsidies and unprecedented tax credits supposedly designed to tackle the climate emergency.

Kyereh informed neighbors that international investors want to build a “blue” ammonia and “clean” hydrogen plant across the fence line – on the same site as a crude oil storage and export terminal which residents say spews noxious fumes that make it hard to breathe.

Ammonia is a toxic substance made by stripping hydrogen from fossil gas and nitrogen from air, and is mostly used for synthetic fertilizer. The St Charles Clean Fuels (SCCF) project claims it will capture and sequester the carbon dioxide (CO2), the planet-warming greenhouse gas generated as a byproduct, making its ammonia cleaner or “blue”.

Randy Moses, at home in St Rose, Louisiana, opposes the proposed ammonia plant next to an existing oil facility.

In theory, the waste CO2 will be compressed, transported in special pipelines and injected deep into underground rock formations for storage, ostensibly forever, for which the company would qualify for federal tax credits for each ton of carbon stored. The SCCF project says that the ammonia will be sold for fertilizer feedstock or so-called “blue” hydrogen – promoted as a “clean” fuel by the fossil fuel industry, which also earns tax credits for it.

“The SCCF low carbon approach is expected to reduce CO2 equivalent emissions by more than 90% compared to traditional ammonia production … Financing and building infrastructure that deploys cleaner solutions like blue ammonia is essential to fighting climate change,” said a spokesperson for the SCCF project, which is majority-owned by a Danish investment company.

But industry claims about the climate credentials of “blue” hydrogen and ammonia have been debunked by scientists without fossil fuel ties. The process depends on fossil gas, a major driver of global heating, as a raw material and energy source – which both emits CO2 and leads to substantial upstream emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

“‘Blue’ hydrogen is a marketing scam, pure and simple. The facts do not back up industry hype,” said Robert Howarth, professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University, and co-author of a seminal study discrediting industry claims about hydrogen.

“The best any plant has done for net CO2 capture is 25% to 30%, and that’s before the very potent methane [leaks]. The 90% capture rate the industry claims is pure nonsense,” Howarth added.

In addition, ammonia production generates air pollutants such as nitrogen oxide, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds – a toxic mix already choking residents in Cancer Alley. CO2, itself an asphyxiant and intoxicant, also poses a threat as leaks can cause injury or death by replacing oxygen in the air – which makes St Rose residents Randy and Dedra Moses fear for the safety of their grandchildren.

Out canvassing, some locals were dismayed by prospects of another polluting facility while others hoped it would bring jobs. At one house, a retired teacher with a heart condition was anxious that the air quality could get even worse and signed the petition, promising to attend the forthcoming community meetings. Kyereh did her best to stay positive and moved on to the next house, but the 54-year-old was worried.

A house in St Rose next to the IMTT oil storage facility in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley

“It feels doomful, like we’re going in the wrong direction. They are claiming to save the planet but at our expense. If the ammonia or CO2 leaks, we will be sitting ducks. We are the sacrifice zone and we feel it,” she said.

The St Rose ammonia plant is among at least 141 carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects currently proposed by the oil, gas and petrochemical industries across the US, according to the Oil and Gas Watch tracker. (Additional CCS projects associated with coal and ethanol plants aren’t included.)

Experts warn that the CCS and the “clean” hydrogen boom amount to a costly climate gamble unleashed by unprecedented federal spending and tax breaks in the Biden administration’s landmark climate and infrastructure legislation – which will almost certainly prolong the use of fossil fuels.

The history of CCS has largely been one of “underperformance” and “unmet expectations”, the International Energy Agency said in 2023.

Climate scientists agree that the only way to curtail further catastrophic global heating is to radically cut greenhouse gas emissions by transitioning off fossil fuels, yet CCS depends on fossil fuels, emits greenhouse gases and can be used to extract more oil.

Three-quarters of the carbon currently captured in the US is used to extract hard-to-reach reserves, known as “enhanced oil recovery”. Data on carbon storage – which must be permanent to be effective – is entirely self-reported by corporations, with no independent oversight in place to check for leaks or verify company claims, according to research by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP).

“Every dollar invested in CCS rather than renewable energy is a wasted dollar … It’s a scam,” said Charles Harvey, professor of environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Harvey co-founded the first private CCS startup 15 years ago but has since said that he was wrong – that CCS technology is inefficient and cannot deliver.

Kimbrelle Eugene Kyereh canvassing in St Rose, Louisiana.

Louisiana is at the center of the decarbonization boom, accounting for more than a third of the proposed projects, which include 11 hydrogen or ammonia plants, three liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals and three gas processing plants, according to Oil and Gas Watch figures.

Advocates say the proposed new projects will lead to more air pollution – and more greenhouse gases – in a region with some of the worst air quality and cancer rates in the country, and which is already suffering mounting climate impacts including extreme heat, increasingly intense hurricanes, sea level rise and drought.

“It’s a scam that will enrich the oil and gas and petrochemical industries further, prolonging their ability to destroy livelihoods and community health, poison fenceline communities and perpetuate climate change – while environmental justice communities are left to jump through loopholes for funding to minimize the harms,” said Eloise Reid, coordinator of the Louisiana Against False Solutions Coalition.

St Rose, Louisiana, community organizer Rose Wilright.

Yet the Biden administration – and the Louisiana state government – is betting on CCS and hydrogen to meet its climate goals, despite evidence that the technology is inefficient and unproven as a reliable climate solution.

Over the past couple of years, the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries have flooded the state legislature with lobbyists, executives and friendly experts to thwart community and environmental group efforts from properly regulating CCS.

Louisiana’s part-time lawmakers, who earn $16,000 a year and have only one staffer each, rely heavily on lobbyists for policymaking, according to Jackson Voss, the climate policy coordinator for the Alliance for Affordable Energy (AAE).

Earlier this year, state senator Michael “Big Mike” Fesi proposed legislation to exclude gas pipelines from the “right to know” law, which requires companies to share information about leaks of hazardous materials. Fesi is the owner of a major pipeline construction and maintenance contractor.

In 2022, the Louisiana legislature passed a law exempting state employees hired to perform geoscientific work – which is key to safe carbon injection and storage – from requiring board certification. (Florists and hair braiders are legally required to pass a written exam and obtain a state license.) Studies have shown that CCS risks causing earthquakes, and Louisiana has several fault lines, with more than a hundred earthquakes registered since 1990.

The view over the St Rose community’s fence line, directly behind the home of Randy and Dedra Moses.

A taskforce set up to ostensibly address mounting public concerns about CCS and report back to the state senate by February 2024 was composed of five oil and gas attorneys and an academic with industry ties. Its report has not been published.

The vast majority of bills which could have made the proposed build-out safer and more environmentally just have been thrown out, ignored or watered down.

“It’s like the fox watching the hen house,” said former oil worker Justin Solet, a member of the United Houma Nation and organizing fellow with Healthy Gulf, an environmental justice organization.

In arguably the biggest victory so far for CCS proponents, in December the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) handed over regulatory oversight – or primacy – for CO2 injection wells to the Louisiana department of energy and natural resources (LDENR), an under-resourced agency which has been criticized for failing to enforce existing regulations meant to protect the environment and people from oil and gas wells.

Louisiana is a Republican-dominated state. But the application for primacy, which is being legally challenged by environmental groups, was made by the former Democratic governor, who put CCS at the heart of the state’s climate action plan. John Bel Edwards also led a delegation to the 2021 UN climate summit in Scotland, to promote the state as open for CCS business.

St Rose community organizer Randy Moses on the rail track that separates his home from an industrial facility.

His Republican successor, Jeff Landry, who was elected in 2023 after a record low turnout, has expanded access to state tax breaks and appointed fossil fuel insiders to key roles. This includes Tyler Gray, an oil and gas attorney and former president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association (Lmoga), the state’s most prominent industry trade group and a key CCS proponent, to lead the LDENR. As Lmoga president, in 2018 Gray helped draft a law criminalizing protests near oil and gas pipelines and construction sites.

“The fossil fuel and petrochemical industry has had a grip on our state for a very long time. The support for oil and gas, and now CCS and hydrogen, goes across party lines, with very little opposition despite community concerns,” said Jackson Voss of the AAE. “In terms of political capture, Louisiana is absolutely a petrostate.”

The Louisiana governor’s office, the LDENR and Lmoga did not respond to requests for comment.

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St Rose is an unincorporated town of 6,000 people in St Charles parish – which extends over both banks of the Mississippi River in the 85-mile-long (135km-long) heavy industrial stretch of land known as Cancer Alley.

St Rose was founded around 1880 by a group of formerly enslaved families as a free town called Elkinsville, creating a thriving, close-knit agrarian community surrounded by plantations which were later sold off to fossil fuel and petrochemical companies.

The SCCF plant would be located on the site of a former sugar plantation now owned by lnternational-Matex Tank Terminals (IMTT), which would store and handle the ammonia. Residents of the area closest to the proposed site have a higher risk of respiratory disease from pollution exposure than 96% of other Louisiana residents, according to recent EPA data. Hurricane Ida ripped through the community in 2021, and some homes are still covered by the temporary roofs installed in the aftermath of the category 4 storm.

“As plantations became petrochemical plants, small free towns like Elkinsville became fenceline communities most exposed to the toxic pollution. Now Biden’s signature climate legislation is exacerbating this racial inequality in toxic harm by subsidizing the CCS buildout,” said Michael Levien, a sociologist from Johns Hopkins University researching the social consequences of CCS in Louisiana.

“St Rose epitomizes this, but it’s the same pattern up and down the river.”

Lake Maurepas, a protected body of water in south-eastern Louisiana. The chemical company Air Products wants to store millions of tons of carbon dioxide under the lakebed.

A staggering 90% of the proposed “blue” hydrogen plants nationwide are located in low-income disadvantaged communities, according to the Oil and Gas Watch tracker.

The SCCF project said the plant would bring “significant future opportunities” to the local economy, and represents a shift to “clean fuels and clean fertilizer production that benefits both the regional community and cleaner energy supply needs”.

IMTT’s CEO, Carlin Conner, said the company has committed to invest over $1.6m in environmental mitigation measures at its St Rose facility, and regularly meets with local residents to address their concerns.

According to its proponents, Louisiana’s geological formation and existing industry infrastructure make it ideal for the capture and storage of CO2 – whereas critics argue that this is precisely what makes Louisiana so risky.

Historically, Louisiana was one of the largest oil and gas producers in the country, with 180,000 known abandoned wells scattered across the state including more than 28,000 unplugged wells. Two-thirds of abandoned wells are located in rock formation areas where carbon could potentially be stored, according to EIP research.

Of most concern are the 13,000 oldest and leakiest wells, located in potential carbon sequestration hotspots. CO2 plumes could migrate directly via the abandoned wells, like methane does, contaminating surface water and displacing oxygen in the air – which can be fatal.

Bill Whittington, Lisa Hoover and Mayhew Barnum boating on Lake Maurepas. They belong to the Lake Maurepas Preservation Society, founded in 2023 to fight a proposed CCS project.

In a recent field experiment, the Guardian accompanied researchers from Healthy Gulf who detected methane leaking from an orphaned well (abandoned with no known owner) in a lake close to where carbon injection sites have been proposed in a separate project.

“Fishermen, not the LDENR [state agency], are managing these wells. Louisiana is not prepared for primacy [oversight]. We need two decades to clean up the existing oil and gas junk infrastructure before we even think about injecting CO2, it’s such a mess,” said Scott Eustice, community science director at Healthy Gulf. “Plugging leaking wells would be far more effective in mitigating climate change than CCS.”

Several proposed pipelines and injection sites across Louisiana could affect protected wetlands and other waterways, as well as burial sites and other historical locations for Indigenous and Black enslaved people.

Leaky wells aren’t the only threat. CO2 pipelines already pose a major safety concern with higher rates of safety incidents compared with other pipelines, according to Fractracker.

The Prop Stop Inn, a old bar only accessible by boat on the Tickfaw River, which flows into Lake Maurepas.

The current 5,000-mile (8,000km) network of CO2 pipelines could increase tenfold under the proposed boom, and safety experts fear that the rush to build out new infrastructure to qualify for the Inflation Reduction Act tax subsidies will compromise safety.

“Current regulations are insufficient to protect the public and the environment from the potential dangers of hydrogen and carbon dioxide pipelines,” said Erin Sutherland, the Pipeline Safety Trust policy and program director. “Many have been proposed near communities, placing them at risk in the event of failure.”

Recent CO2 pipeline leaks in Louisiana and Mississippi have exposed dangerous gaps in the regulatory system, which is undergoing a drawn-out overhaul. The regulator will not be able to apply new design, construction and inspection standards to completed pipelines.

“CCS is not going to mitigate the climate crisis; it will lead to further expansion of fossil fuels and more hazardous waste causing further harm to frontline communities and the planet,” said Monique Harden, director of law and public policy at the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice.

Lisa Hoover of the Lake Maurepas Preservation Society. Photograph: Rita Harper/The Guardian

Back in St Rose, Kimbrelle Eugene Kyereh is cognisant of the role racism has played in creating environmental justice communities in Louisiana, and fears the CCS and hydrogen expansion will lead to more of the same. “We need to get white and middle-class people involved, so it’s not just poor Black people complaining – or we won’t win,” she said.

But corporations are vying for a slice of the billions in grants earmarked for new CCS and “clean” hydrogen projects – with billions more up for grabs in tax credits. So no community is safe.

About 30 miles (50km) north-east of St Rose in a separate project, the chemical giant Air Products is looking to drill dozens of wells in Lake Maurepas, an iconic protected water body, and inject around 5m tons of carbon dioxide each year about a mile below the lakebed.

The CO2 would come from the vast new “blue” hydrogen energy and ammonia complex that Air Products wants to build in Ascension parish, a sprawling dusty landscape where more Black communities are already overburdened by industrial pollution, including from the world’s largest ammonia plant.

Air Products claims it will capture and permanently sequester more than 95% of the waste CO2 generated at the facility. The gas will travel about 35 miles (60km) east in newly constructed pipelines, before being injected into an “ideal geological pore space” – a process that environmentalists fear will threaten Lake Maurepas’s fragile swampy ecosystem. Millions of dollars have been invested in restoring the lake, which after generations of ecological destruction has become a popular destination for tourists and fishers.

The project, which was announced in 2021 before Biden’s key climate legislation, claims it will be the world’s largest CCS operation. Lakeside residents say they found out about the proposed wells when a crabber spotted engineers conducting seismic tests, and created the Lake Maurepas Preservation Society. Its members, who are predominantly climate change skeptics and pro-fossil fuel white Republicans, participated in House and Senate committee hearings and galvanized parish council members and state legislators to oppose the project.

‘They’re trying to destroy the lake and ram this project down our throats,’ said Bill Whittington, president of the Lake Maurepas Preservation Society and a former oil company worker.

Air Products pushed back by hiring 25 lobbyists in 2023, and sued Tangipahoa parish, overturning the local CCS moratorium that would have protected Lake Maurepas. Legislation to protect the lake and strengthen environmental protections at the state level has gone nowhere.

St Rose community organizer Rose Wilright outside her house.

“The fight against Air Products has demonstrated the political capture on both sides of the aisle in the state legislature,” said Kim Coates, a Republican state legislator and former Tangipahoa parish council member.

Air Products said the facility would not be a major source of emissions and that the company will “fully comply” with all air quality permit requirements and other relevant standards. The company has invested in steps to protect and enhance the lake and “blue” hydrogen will help meet carbon reduction goals, a spokesperson said.

“A lot of people around here don’t believe in climate change and CO2, but even if you do, CCS will barely make a difference,” said Caleb Atwell, vice-president of the Lake Maurepas Preservation Society. “We did everything to save our lake, we gave it our best shot, but it’s over.”

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

Two years into his term, has Gov. Shapiro kept his promises to regulate Pennsylvania’s fracking industry?

PITTSBURGH — Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro ran on a promise to regulate Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industry more stringently. Two years into his term, the Environmental Health Project, a public health advocacy nonprofit focused on fracking, has published a report that assesses the Shapiro administration’s progress. “Despite some steps in the right direction, we are still missing the boat on actions that can improve our economic, environmental, and health outcomes,” Alison L. Steele, executive director of the Environmental Health Project, said during a press conference. As attorney general, Shapiro spearheaded a 2020 grand jury report that concluded, in his words, that “when it comes to fracking, Pennsylvania failed” in its “duty to set, and enforce, ground rules that protect public health and safety.” During his campaign for governor in 2022, Shapiro said that if elected, he would implement the eight recommendations made by that grand jury, which included expanding no-drill zones from 500 to 2,500 feet from homes, requiring fracking companies to publicly disclose all chemicals used in wells before they’re drilled, and providing a “comprehensive health response” to the effects of living near fracking sites, among other measures. Some progress has been made on enacting those recommendations, Steele said, but “there are more opportunities available to Gov. Shapiro over the next two years of his term.” The report applauds the Shapiro administration’s progress on some environmental health measures “despite increasing challenges at the federal level,” including identifying and plugging 300 abandoned oil and gas wells, promoting renewable energy projects, and proposing alternatives to the state’s stalled participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). But the report also says the Shapiro administration has fallen short on regulating the oil and gas industry to reduce health risks, prioritizing clean energy that doesn’t include fossil fuels, and fully supporting a just transition to renewable energy.The Shapiro administration has yet to expand no-drill zones in Pennsylvania from the required 500 feet to 2,500 feet, still doesn’t require fracking companies to publicly disclose all chemicals used in fracking, and has failed to acknowledge the science on health risks of exposure to shale gas pollution, according to the report. The report also says that, despite positive efforts to advance environmental justice, agencies like the Pennsylvania Department of Health and Department of Environmental Protection are not engaging enough with frontline communities and health care providers in fracking communities, and that the Department of Environmental Protection needs additional funding to enforce existing environmental regulations. While the Shapiro administration was able to obtain a 14% increase in funding for the Department of Environmental Protection in the 2024-2025 budget, “the bulk of the 2024-2025 funding was earmarked for staff in the permitting division, not the enforcement division, where a real regulatory need exists,” according to the report. Shapiro called for an additional 12% increase in funding for the agency in the 2025-2026 budget, but details about how those funds would be allocated have not yet been released. The report makes the following recommendations for the Shapiro administration: Urge the General Assembly to amend Act 13 and mandate greater distances between homes, schools, hospitals, and fracking sites.Press the legislature to require full disclosure of all chemicals used in fracking wells, even if they are considered proprietary or a trade secret.Develop a comprehensive health plan for preventing fossil fuel pollution exposureAddress cumulative emissions when permitting fracking sites.Further increase funding for the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Health.Call on the state’s departments of health and environmental protection to work more closely and transparently with communities.Take a precautionary approach to petrochemicals, blue hydrogen, and liquified natural gas.Transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable forms of energy. Steele acknowledged that some of the recommendations, including increasing the distance between wells and homes, would require new legislation. The Republican-controlled state senate vocally opposes any new regulations for the oil and gas industry, limiting what the Shapiro administration can achieve. “In those cases,” Steele said, “he could at least use his authority to vocally encourage legislative action.” Pennsylvania state Rep. Dr. Arvind Venkat, an emergency physician who represents parts of western Pennsylvania, said these recommendations are timely as federal environmental protections are being rolled back under the Trump administration. “What we're seeing out of DC is as extreme an attack on environmental regulation and the scientific understanding of the relationship between the environment and health as I've seen in my lifetime,”Venkat said during the press conference. “Both parties are pushing more things down to the state and local level, so as bad as this is…it creates an opportunity for us to be far more responsible than we have been at the state level.”Editor’s note: The Environmental Health Project and Environmental Health News both receive funding from the Heinz Endowments.

PITTSBURGH — Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro ran on a promise to regulate Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industry more stringently. Two years into his term, the Environmental Health Project, a public health advocacy nonprofit focused on fracking, has published a report that assesses the Shapiro administration’s progress. “Despite some steps in the right direction, we are still missing the boat on actions that can improve our economic, environmental, and health outcomes,” Alison L. Steele, executive director of the Environmental Health Project, said during a press conference. As attorney general, Shapiro spearheaded a 2020 grand jury report that concluded, in his words, that “when it comes to fracking, Pennsylvania failed” in its “duty to set, and enforce, ground rules that protect public health and safety.” During his campaign for governor in 2022, Shapiro said that if elected, he would implement the eight recommendations made by that grand jury, which included expanding no-drill zones from 500 to 2,500 feet from homes, requiring fracking companies to publicly disclose all chemicals used in wells before they’re drilled, and providing a “comprehensive health response” to the effects of living near fracking sites, among other measures. Some progress has been made on enacting those recommendations, Steele said, but “there are more opportunities available to Gov. Shapiro over the next two years of his term.” The report applauds the Shapiro administration’s progress on some environmental health measures “despite increasing challenges at the federal level,” including identifying and plugging 300 abandoned oil and gas wells, promoting renewable energy projects, and proposing alternatives to the state’s stalled participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). But the report also says the Shapiro administration has fallen short on regulating the oil and gas industry to reduce health risks, prioritizing clean energy that doesn’t include fossil fuels, and fully supporting a just transition to renewable energy.The Shapiro administration has yet to expand no-drill zones in Pennsylvania from the required 500 feet to 2,500 feet, still doesn’t require fracking companies to publicly disclose all chemicals used in fracking, and has failed to acknowledge the science on health risks of exposure to shale gas pollution, according to the report. The report also says that, despite positive efforts to advance environmental justice, agencies like the Pennsylvania Department of Health and Department of Environmental Protection are not engaging enough with frontline communities and health care providers in fracking communities, and that the Department of Environmental Protection needs additional funding to enforce existing environmental regulations. While the Shapiro administration was able to obtain a 14% increase in funding for the Department of Environmental Protection in the 2024-2025 budget, “the bulk of the 2024-2025 funding was earmarked for staff in the permitting division, not the enforcement division, where a real regulatory need exists,” according to the report. Shapiro called for an additional 12% increase in funding for the agency in the 2025-2026 budget, but details about how those funds would be allocated have not yet been released. The report makes the following recommendations for the Shapiro administration: Urge the General Assembly to amend Act 13 and mandate greater distances between homes, schools, hospitals, and fracking sites.Press the legislature to require full disclosure of all chemicals used in fracking wells, even if they are considered proprietary or a trade secret.Develop a comprehensive health plan for preventing fossil fuel pollution exposureAddress cumulative emissions when permitting fracking sites.Further increase funding for the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Health.Call on the state’s departments of health and environmental protection to work more closely and transparently with communities.Take a precautionary approach to petrochemicals, blue hydrogen, and liquified natural gas.Transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable forms of energy. Steele acknowledged that some of the recommendations, including increasing the distance between wells and homes, would require new legislation. The Republican-controlled state senate vocally opposes any new regulations for the oil and gas industry, limiting what the Shapiro administration can achieve. “In those cases,” Steele said, “he could at least use his authority to vocally encourage legislative action.” Pennsylvania state Rep. Dr. Arvind Venkat, an emergency physician who represents parts of western Pennsylvania, said these recommendations are timely as federal environmental protections are being rolled back under the Trump administration. “What we're seeing out of DC is as extreme an attack on environmental regulation and the scientific understanding of the relationship between the environment and health as I've seen in my lifetime,”Venkat said during the press conference. “Both parties are pushing more things down to the state and local level, so as bad as this is…it creates an opportunity for us to be far more responsible than we have been at the state level.”Editor’s note: The Environmental Health Project and Environmental Health News both receive funding from the Heinz Endowments.

Alcohol makes male fruit flies more attractive

Alcohol increases the release of chemical sex signals and makes males more attractive to females.

Male fruit flies that drink alcohol become more attractive to females, according to a new study.Adding alcohol to males' food increases their release of chemicals that attract females and leads to higher mating success. Fruit flies, or Drosophila melanogaster, are often found around our food waste bins as they feed on rotting fruit which gradually produces alcohol.Scientists have been trying to study why they are attracted to alcohol and how it affects them.Previous research has studied different theories about this attraction, such as the flies were seeking a euphoric state or a substitute for the high of mating among males rejected by females.Study author Bill Hansson, head of the Department of Evolutionary Neuroethology at the Max Planck Institute, said such research has taken an anthropomorphic view of fly behaviour, whereas this latest study suggests drinking alcohol gives the flies a reproductive advantage."We don't think flies drink alcohol because they are depressed," he said.The fly's attraction both to the carbohydrates and yeast in rotting fruit, as well as to the alcohol, cannot be separated, he added.In the study, alcohol, and particularly methanol, increased the males' production and release of chemical sex signals, called pheromones, which made them more attractive to females.Pheromones are released into the air from one individual to influence the behaviour of another animal of the same species.Males were therefore strongly attracted to alcohol, especially those males which had never mated.The new study also showed that the fly's response to smelling alcohol is controlled by three different neural circuits in its brain.While two are responsible for attracting male flies to small amounts of alcohol, a third ensures that excessive amounts have a deterrent effect. Because alcohol is toxic, the fly's brain must carefully weigh the risks and benefits of drinking it, and it does this by balancing signals of attraction with aversion."This means that the flies have a control mechanism that allows them to get all the benefits of alcohol consumption without risking alcohol intoxication," lead author Ian Keesey, of the University of Nebraska, said. For their investigations, the researchers combined physiological studies - such as imaging techniques to visualise processes in the fly brain, chemical analyses of environmental odours, and behavioural studies. The paper is published in the journal Science Advances.

Oregon moves to regulate harmful ‘forever chemicals’

The state Department of Environmental Quality is adding six PFAS to Oregon's list of more than 800 regulated contaminants.

Oregon’s list of regulated hazardous substances is getting its first update in nearly two decades with the addition of six “forever chemicals” known to harm human health.The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality on Tuesday announced it would add six perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, to the state’s list of more than 800 regulated contaminants and begin creating regulations to limit Oregonians’ exposure to them.“We need this rulemaking to hold parties responsible for contamination and to address that contamination,” said Sarah Van Glubt, a manager in DEQ’s environmental cleanup program who is leading the rulemaking. “Otherwise, right now, everything is voluntary. We can’t require parties to test and treat for these chemicals.”The Environmental Quality Commission is expected to vote on adding the chemicals to the state’s list and adopting new regulations on or after May 21.PFAS are human-made chemical chains used in products such as flame retardants, nonstick cookware and waterproof clothing that do not break down or go away naturally but instead have for decades leached into rivers and streams and contaminated soil, water and even air.They are thought to now be in the blood of everyone in the U.S., according to research and testing from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and can lead to increased risks for cancers, heart damage, high cholesterol and birth defects, among other adverse health effects.Suspected sources of past or ongoing PFAS pollution in Oregon include 139 commercial airports that are or were required to maintain PFAS-containing firefighting foam on site, as well as 18 municipal fire training facilities near 20 of the most populous cities in the state, according to rulemaking documents from DEQ.Officials at Portland International Airport began testing for PFAS in 2017 in and around a firefighter training ground there used by the Air National Guard. They identified PFAS contamination adjacent to the nearby Columbia Slough and found PFAS-impaired fish and aquatic species. They’ve since switched to using PFAS-free firefighting foam and have begun initial stages of cleanup.Oregon lawmakers are considering a bill — Senate Bill 91 — that would ban PFAS from firefighting foam used on the ground by firefighters. The Oregon Senate voted to pass the bill nearly unanimously in February, but a vote in the House has not yet been scheduled.Other sites to potentially test for PFAS contamination include 22 bulk fuel facilities and 93 metal plating facilities in Oregon.In 2024, the U.S. Envionmental Protection Agency added several PFAS to the federal list of regulated hazardous substances, and mandated states begin testing for them in drinking water systems.The Oregon Health Authority has identified PFAS in 35 Oregon public drinking water systems, with 24 of those exceeding the EPA’s new drinking water standards for the compounds. The state has until April 2026 to adopt the federal agency’s new PFAS standards and public water systems have until April 2029 to comply with those standards.DEQ’s new regulations would apply to PFAS pollution in rivers, lakes, soil and groundwater but would not address potential contamination released through the air, such as when biosolids and sewage sludge containing PFAS are burned, releasing PFAS into the air, or potential PFAS contamination from those biosolids being spread on farm fields as fertilizer.Biosolids filtered from Portland’s sewer and wastewater get heated and dried out in anaerobic digesters and sent to farms in eastern Oregon as fertilizer. The department doesn’t test those biosolids, which likely contain PFAS.Department spokesman Antony Sparrow said the EPA is developing a risk assessment for sewage sludge that will inform future state regulations.Van Glubt said the department is working on a strategic plan that would combine the work of DEQ’s air, water, biosolids and other teams, as well as work being done at other agencies, to deal with ongoing PFAS issues.“This rule making really is just addressing one piece of the puzzle,” she said. “There are other issues at play with PFAS that will need to be addressed.”Oregon’s hazardous substances list was last updated in 2006, when environmental regulators added methane to the list.Participate in the rulemaking: Email comments to PFAS2025@deq.oregon.gov. Join a public hearing on April 22 at 11 a.m. here or 6 p.m. here-- Alex Baumhardt, Oregon Capital ChronicleThe Oregon Capital Chronicle, founded in 2021, is a nonprofit news organization that focuses on Oregon state government, politics and policy.

Dow Wants to Power Its Texas Manufacturing Complex With New Nuclear Reactors Instead of Natural Gas

Dow, a major producer of chemicals and plastics, wants to use next-generation nuclear reactors for clean power and steam at a Texas manufacturing complex instead of natural gas

Dow, a major producer of chemicals and plastics, wants to use next-generation nuclear reactors for clean power and steam at a Texas manufacturing complex instead of natural gas.Dow's subsidiary, Long Mott Energy, applied Monday to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a construction permit. It said the project with X-energy, an advanced nuclear reactor and fuel company, would nearly eliminate the emissions associated with power and steam generation at its plant in Seadrift, Texas, avoiding roughly 500,000 metric tons of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions annually.If built and operated as planned, it would be the first U.S. commercial advanced nuclear power plant for an industrial site, according to the NRC.For many, nuclear power is emerging as an answer to meet a soaring demand for electricity nationwide, driven by the expansion of data centers and artificial intelligence, manufacturing and electrification, and to stave off the worst effects of a warming planet. However, there are safety and security concerns, the Union of Concerned Scientists cautions. The question of how to store hazardous nuclear waste in the U.S. is unresolved, too.Dow wants four of X-energy's advanced small modular reactors, the Xe-100. Combined, those could supply up to 320 megawatts of electricity or 800 megawatts of thermal power. X-energy CEO J. Clay Sell said the project would demonstrate how new nuclear technology can meet the massive growth in electricity demand.The Seadrift manufacturing complex, at about 4,700 acres, has eight production plants owned by Dow and one owned by Braskem. There, Dow makes plastics for a variety of uses including food and beverage packaging and wire and cable insulation, as well as glycols for antifreeze, polyester fabrics and bottles, and oxide derivatives for health and beauty products.Edward Stones, the business vice president of energy and climate at Dow, said submitting the permit application is an important next step in expanding access to safe, clean, reliable, cost-competitive nuclear energy in the United States. The project is supported by the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.The NRC expects the review to take three years or less. If a permit is issued, construction could begin at the end of this decade so the reactors would be ready early in the 2030s, as the natural gas-fired equipment is retired.A total of four applicants have asked the NRC for construction permits for advanced nuclear reactors. The NRC issued a permit to Abilene Christian University for a research reactor and to Kairos Power for one reactor and two reactor test versions of that company's design. It's reviewing an application by Bill Gates and his energy company, TerraPower, to build an advanced reactor in Wyoming. X-energy is also collaborating with Amazon to bring more than 5 gigawatts of new nuclear power projects online across the United States by 2039, beginning in Washington state. Amazon and other tech giants have committed to using renewable energy to meet the surging demand from data centers and artificial intelligence and address climate change.The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

Oil and gas money shapes research, creates ‘echo chamber’ in higher education

Louisiana’s flagship university is looking to partner more closely with petrochemical industries in the state.

Jackson Voss loves his alma mater, Louisiana State University. He appreciates that his undergraduate education was paid for by a program dreamed up by an oil magnate and that he received additional scholarships from ExxonMobil and Shell. But the socially conscious Louisiana native was also aware of what the support of those companies seemed to buy — silence. Voss, who graduated from LSU in Baton Rouge 11 years ago with a degree in political science, says when he attended school there, he didn’t hear discussions of how climate change made Hurricane Katrina worse; why petrochemical plants along the Mississippi River sickened residents of the mostly Black communities around those facilities; or about the devastating and permanent impact of the BP oil spill that happened during Voss’ time at LSU. Voss, now director of climate policy for the New Orleans-based consumer advocacy group, the Alliance for Affordable Energy, says he didn’t hear climate change or “Cancer Alley” openly discussed until he went to the University of Michigan, 1,100 miles away, for graduate school. “It was not a place that was really discussing these issues in the way that should have been discussed at the time,” he said of LSU, where oil wells dotted the campus at least into the 1970s. Any such discussions weren’t taken seriously, he said, and even fellow students were often defensive of the industry.  “The discussions that did happen had to focus on, kind of finding a way to talk about climate without talking about climate,” Voss said, “and it was especially important not to talk about the role that oil and gas played in worsening climate change.” Louisiana State University graduate Jackson Voss attended the Baton Rouge-based school as an undergraduate about a decade ago. Pam Radtke / Floodlight Whether through funding of research projects, the creation of new academic programs focused on energy or, more subtly, through support of everything from opera to football, the oil and gas industry has been shaping discourse at LSU — and universities around the world — for decades. LSU administrators insist they have safeguards against undue influence by fossil fuel companies, which have given tens of millions of dollars to the university in just the past three years. But a joint investigation by Floodlight, WWNO/WRKF and the Louisiana Illuminator found the funding allows the industry to place a thumb on the scale of what gets studied at the state’s flagship university — and what is left out. Research by Floodlight shows between 2010 and 2020, petrochemical companies gave LSU at least $44 million through their charitable foundations, making it one of the top recipients of fossil fuel funding among U.S. universities, based on research from the nonprofit Data for Progress. LSU received more from petrochemical companies than the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard and Texas A&M — and 20 times more than Voss’s other alma mater, the University of Michigan. The Data for Progress research showed over that decade, the 27 schools they examined received almost $700 million total. Increasingly, researchers are questioning the longstanding ties between fossil fuels and universities at a time when scientists and governments across the globe overwhelmingly agree that sharply reducing the use of fossil fuels and increasing reliance on renewable energy are crucial to stalling or reversing climate change. Last year, a joint report from Congress found “the oil and gas industry cultivates partnerships with academic institutions as a way to influence climate research.” And a first-of-its-kind study released by researchers last year found the fossil fuel industry’s approach is similar to how the tobacco, pharmaceutical and other industries co-opted academics.  “It’s a situation exactly parallel to public health research being funded by the tobacco industry. It’s a conflict of interest — the size of an oil tanker,” said Geoffrey Supran, associate professor of environmental science and policy who studies fossil fuel disinformation at the University of Miami and is director of its Climate Accountability Lab. He says LSU and other schools like it have become “an echo chamber for pro-fossil-fuel narratives.” LSU and its president, William Tate IV, have doubled down on the university’s ties with the fossil fuel industry in recent years, despite its shrinking importance to the Louisiana economy. Since 2020, Tate has solicited and received more than $30 million from fossil fuel companies, including a record $27.5 million from Shell. During LSU’s Giving Day campaign on Wednesday, Shell plopped down another $1.5 million for LSU libraries and the College of Science. “It’s time for a partnership in significant fashion to link the work at LSU in our energy areas, including alternative energy, and creating ways to keep that industry vibrant here in this state and for our country,” Tate told reporters in 2022, about a year after he was named to head the school.  LSU insists there are firewalls in place to prevent oil and gas companies from unduly influencing research and study. But public records and interviews indicate that fossil fuel funding can have a subtle and even direct impact on research and critical discourse.  “Universities are at risk of being pawns in a climate propaganda scheme devised and implemented by fossil fuel interests for decades,” Supran said.  ‘Tip of the iceberg’ It’s impossible to pin down how much money fossil fuel interests — or any industry — gives to universities such as LSU. Although it is a public institution, much of the money for scholarships, workforce development and buildings goes through LSU’s foundation — a nonprofit separate from the university. The foundation, in accordance with philanthropic standards, does not disclose its donors unless they agree to be identified. In its research, Data for Progress used public announcements from universities and companies, along with tax filings from fossil fuel companies’ foundations, to determine how much the universities received from those companies. “It’s most likely the tip of the iceberg,” said Jake Lowe, executive director of Campus Climate Network, which under its previous name, Fossil Free Research, worked with Data for Progress to create its 2023 report.  Louisiana State University President William Tate IV visits Shell’s facility in Convent, La., in 2023 to talk about his plan to focus on five areas at the university, including energy. Louisiana State University For example, the report includes millions of dollars the ExxonMobil Foundation gives for scholarships — but not the money going directly from the company to a school or its foundation. “If the ExxonMobil corporation has a research contract with LSU, you’re not going to see that in the tax documents or annual reports,” Lowe said. Floodlight, with the help of a Data for Progress researcher, used the same method to look at how much petrochemical money went to LSU. The analysis included examining public announcements from the companies and tax filings, called 990s, of the foundations for Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Entergy, Koch Inc., Southwest Electric Power Corp., Schlumberger (now known as SLB), Dow and Taylor Oil. From 2010 to 2020, Taylor Oil’s foundation gave the most to LSU, almost $21 million.   The second highest amount was from ExxonMobil, which gave more than $10 million — the majority of which came from a matching gift program in which the company gave $3 for every dollar donated by an employee or retiree to a college or university. Louisiana State University’s “Quad” is the heart of the campus and was named after ExxonMobil in 1999. Piper Hutchinson / Louisiana Illuminator But then, in 2022, Shell dwarfed the amount given over the previous decade with a single $27.5 million donation to LSU. The majority, $25 million, was for a new Institute for Energy Innovation to focus on “scholarship and solution delivery” on “hydrogen and carbon capture … the coast; and low-carbon fuels.” Donations buy influence  LSU doesn’t hide that the institute’s mission was shaped in partnership with the industry. In the early days, a former Shell executive, Rhoman Hardy, served as the research center’s interim director. The company also has three of the institute’s seven board seats; industry groups hold another two. Last year, the nonprofit New Orleans news outlet The Lens discovered LSU created a system: If a fossil fuel company gives $50,000 or more to the institute, it gets the right to participate in a specific research project, to use the intellectual property from that project and “robust review and discussion of the specific study and project output.” For a $1.25 million donation, a company also receives “voting rights for selected institute activities, including research.” A contribution of $5 million or more earns a donor a seat on the institute’s board. LSU president William Tate IV poses with LSU mascot Mike the Tiger. Louisiana State University When reached for comment about the institute, its donations and its potential influence, Shell responded, “We’re proud to partner with LSU to contribute to the growing compendium of peer-reviewed climate science and advance the effort to identify multiple pathways and build the ecosystems that can lead to more energy with fewer emissions.” In 2023, ExxonMobil gave $2 million to LSU and became a “strategic” partner. With the donation, ExxonMobil will work with the institute to study batteries, solar power, carbon capture and “advanced” plastics recycling. ExxonMobil did not respond to a request for comment about the donation or about the money it has previously given to LSU. At a Louisiana Board of Regents’ Energy Transition Research Symposium at LSU later that year, ExxonMobil gave a presentation on advanced plastics recycling, a controversial technology that opponents say amounts to greenwashing the problem of plastic waste by burning it rather than reusing it. “It is clear based on the board and research focus areas of the new Institute for Energy Innovation that it is focused squarely on innovations using fossil fuels,” said Logan Atkinson Burke, Voss’ boss at the Alliance for Affordable Energy, an energy consumer advocacy group. Environmentalists say technologies being studied by the institute, including carbon capture, hydrogen and low-carbon fuels, are “false solutions” that will do little to address the climate crisis. ‘Subconscious’ bias?  The institute’s current director, Brad Ives, and LSU’s vice president for research and economic development, Robert Twilley, say they have put safeguards in place to prevent industry influence. And Twilley says this type of research — working hand in hand with industries on the ground — is core to the mission of LSU as a land grant university, a program Abraham Lincoln established in 1862 that used federal land sales to fund universities focused on practical subjects including architecture, engineering and agriculture. “It’s how we as an institution manage it and the safeguards and being very conscious of our ethics, being very conscious of what projects we work on,” Twilley said. He points to federal guidelines, the scientific method and peer review as some of the safeguards that keep the university’s research independent from industry influence. The institute sends its research proposals to an anonymous third-party panel of scientists to be ranked, Twilley says. Those rankings help decide what research it funds. Louisiana State University’s Petroleum Engineering Research & Technology Transfer, or PERTT, Laboratory, is an industrial-scale facility for training and research on borehole technology. According to LSU, it is the only such facility in North America. Louisiana State University Ives says funders aren’t allowed contact with researchers either. “What we’re doing is making sure that the researchers have total academic freedom to let the research take them where it goes,” Ives said. “We know we can sleep at night because we are not doing anything that’s wrong.” But Supran, who once worked on projects funded by oil and gas, says it’s not always as simple as a researcher purposefully skewing results. Scientists are only human, making these relationships inherently fraught. “We’re all subject to biases,” he said. “Things like reciprocation. You know that if I give you a pen, you have some small subconscious desire to reciprocate it in some sense down the line.” For example, one study showed how reviews of the health effects of secondhand smoke funded by the tobacco industry were almost 90 times more likely to conclude that it was not harmful compared to reviews funded by other sources. There’s evidence that the lines between funding and academic independence are sometimes blurred at LSU. Several influential reports and studies from LSU’s Center for Energy Studies have drawn scrutiny over the years for being misleading. In one case, a utility-funded report led to the dismantling of Louisiana’s successful rooftop solar program. In another, a report helped curb efforts to sue oil and gas companies for decades of environmental damage, claiming the lawsuits cost the state more than it would gain. A more recent example was found in public records reviewed by WWNO, including a contract between the Center for Energy Studies and the Bracewell law firm, representing Gulf Coast Sequestration. That company wants to store millions of tons of carbon dioxide underground in southwest Louisiana. It asked the center to use the project as a case study for the economic impact of a carbon capture industry on the Gulf Coast. Climate advocates Corinne Salter and Jill Tupitza, who started a group and podcast called Climate Pelicans, and Cheyenne Autin discuss divestment in fossil fuels in November 2023 at Louisiana State University’s Baton Rouge campus. Tarun Kakarala / The Reveille The contract suggests that some of the report’s conclusions were reached even before the study began. The researchers said they planned to “underscore the transformative nature of CCS (carbon capture and sequestration) on the Louisiana economy.” LSU’s final report ultimately listed all of the financial reasons the Gulf Coast should welcome the projects like this one — while barely mentioning the economic risks, such as the cost and financial viability of  carbon capture facilities. WWNO showed the report to several researchers familiar with sponsored research. All of them shared concerns over the prescriptive nature of the research proposal or the terms of the contract itself. LSU allows research sponsors to give feedback on drafts before they’re published. Sponsors are also allowed to stay anonymous — meaning, the public doesn’t know who funds the research. “It gets a D grade and it’s not quite an F,” Supran said, noting that in this case, the funder was disclosed. “ The fact that this report just touts the economic benefits of this specific company funding the report — it kind of makes you wonder if it’s worth the paper it’s written on.” The report’s authors declined to comment. Twilley defended the contract, saying its terms are standard throughout the university and that researchers are allowed to propose hypotheses.  The contract is not illegal nor does it constitute research misconduct such as using fake data or plagiarizing. But according to one elected official, reports like these, which carry the credibility of a university without the scrutiny of peer review, could influence public policy. “The research plays a significant role in determining whether or not we’re on the right or wrong course,” said Davante Lewis, a public service commissioner in Louisiana. His commission regulates services in Louisiana including the electric utilities. Lewis said he counts on such academic reports to provide a fair and comprehensive picture of an issue. But, as more industry money enters research, he said he was concerned, noting, “Oftentimes we have seen where money drives facts, not facts drive money.” Burnishing their reputations Besides funding LSU’s energy institute, oil and gas interests also pays for things everyone likes, such as health programs, tutoring and even halftime kicking contests with football fans. Supran says he and other researchers have a working theory that while oil and gas companies pour big money into big research institutions such as MIT and Stanford to give them credibility, they spend money at regional universities in states including Louisiana and Texas to build a compliant population. “It doesn’t take a genius to imagine that that money may be used to burnish the reputation locally of those companies and foster a vibrant recruitment pool,” Supran said. Geoffrey Supran, an associate professor at the University of Miami, tells members of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee at a May 1, 2024 hearing that his research has found “widespread infiltration of fossil fuel interests into higher education.” U.S. Senate Budget Committee Voss says the oil and gas industry’s support of benefits for the state are “one of the few things that it actually has right.” On the flip side, he added, “I think it protects the industry from criticism, because it makes people feel like they’re a part of the community.” But the heavy presence of oil and gas on campus can have a chilling effect on people and groups who don’t support those industries. Jill Tupitza, now a marine scientist in California, was a graduate student at LSU when she and fellow graduate student Corinne Salter started Climate Pelicans, an advocacy organization that worked to get LSU to stop investing in fossil fuels. When they started questioning the ties between LSU and fossil fuels, they were met with resistance. “Immediately, doors were shut,” Tupitza said. One administrator told her, “‘I can’t tell you what to do, I can’t punish you for going further. But I would strongly recommend that you stop asking questions about this,’” she recalled. “So that, obviously, that made us double down.” The group led marches and a petition drive urging climate divestment. They started a podcast that explored topics including environmental justice and false climate solutions. Tupitza said the LSU Foundation stonewalled the group’s requests for information about how much money it had invested in fossil fuels and refused requests to attend meetings about the foundation’s $700 million endowment. Later, the foundation told Tupitza that less than 4% of its holdings were invested in fossil fuels And then, while Tupitza and fellow graduate students were writing “Divest from Fossil Fuels,” in pink chalk in front of the foundation building, they were arrested on graffiti charges.  Those charges were eventually dropped. School rules prohibit writing on the sidewalks with chalk, but it is not an arrestable offense. Tupitza described her arrest as “a huge scare tactic.”.  Supran says LSU isn’t unique in its hesitation to cut ties with the oil and gas industry.  “I think it’s fair to say that for the most part, there has not been careful deliberation about the costs and the benefits of these ties, but rather a head down, and aggressive, solicitation of as much funding as they can receive from anyone.” Voss predicts that if conditions worsen in an industry known for its booms and busts, its support for LSU will disappear. And as climate change worsens, it will make it harder for businesses and people to stay in Louisiana, which is already near the top of U.S. states when it comes to population loss.  “In many ways, higher education is sitting upon a house of cards, and relying upon oil and gas is incredibly risky — as it always has been.” Instead, he said, “I think that LSU could and should be a really critical voice in climate change and environmental justice in Louisiana. I do worry that in failing to do so and by being so heavily tied up in oil and gas interests, it actually puts the university in a worse position.” This is Part 2 of a two-part investigative series exploring the relationship between the fossil fuel industry and Louisiana State University. This story was reported by a partnership with WWNO/WRKF, the Louisiana Illuminator and Floodlight. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Oil and gas money shapes research, creates ‘echo chamber’ in higher education on Mar 29, 2025.

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