(Letter to the Editor - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

I am responding to the letter to the editor in last weekend’s (May 10-11) edition of the Parkersburg News and Sentinel by West Virginia Manufacturers Association President Bill Bissett titled “Another look at carbon capture and storage.”

Mr. Bissett’s assertion that carbon capture and storage or carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology is “proven and safe” simply because attempts to develop this technology date back to the 1970s is a blatant falsehood. A website developed and maintained by the Science and Environmental Health Network (SEHN), carboncapturefacts.org, breaks down the numerous and sundry problems with CO2 capture, pipelining, use, storage, water use and water quality issues with CCS, problems with the 45Q tax credit and other financial incentives, and more.

CCS is extremely expensive, unproven (essentially disproven) at anywhere near the scale of our excess CO2 as greenhouse gas problem, potentially dangerous (CO2 is an asphyxiant that if released at high enough levels from a pipeline or storage site leak could stop internal combustion engines and suffocate people and CO2 pipelines can explode – see “The Gassing of Satartia” by Huffington Post writer Dan Zegart from Aug. 26, 2021, digital link here: http://bit.ly/2UXyYzP), and is only being pushed by folks like Mr. Bissett to extend the life of oil, gas and coal use.

Mind you, the West Virginia Manufacturers Association is the same group that claimed at the West Virginia Legislature in 2019 that, because West Virginians are more obese on average than the rest of the country and tend to drink less water and eat fewer fish out of our waterways, the U.S. EPA’s recommendations for water quality standards should be adjusted to allow for more pollutants.

I think I’ll take advice on things like environmental and public health impacts and the safety, efficacy, affordability and economic outcome projections of technologies like CCS from scientists in relevant fields of study, public health professionals and economists and analysts who are not associated with what westvirginia.gov refers to as “the voice of the industry in the state.” Thanks anyway, Mr. Bissett.

Eric Engle

Parkersburg