Some landowners could be forced to let companies inject CO2 beneath their properties, and the state would get exclusive say over project permitting.
This story was originally published by Canary Media.
Ohio legislators are considering bills that would bar local governments from having a say in permitting projects that capture carbon dioxide emissions and inject them underground. The legislation could even force some landowners to let their property be used for carbon dioxide storage.
The framework proposed in the twin bills being considered by the state House and Senate starkly contrasts with Ohio’s approach to wind and solar farms, most of which can be blocked by counties.
Instead, carbon capture and storage projects would follow a process similar to what’s used for oil and gas drilling, in which property owners must allow development on or below their land if enough neighbors support it.
At least one large energy company, Tenaska, is already talking to Ohio landowners about obtaining rights to drill wells and store carbon dioxide from industrial and energy operations deep underground. An executive with the firm said the legislation would provide “clarity” for its planned carbon storage hub serving Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
“This project will provide manufacturers, industrial facilities, and other businesses in this region with a solution to address growing environmental regulations and climate goals,” said Ali Kairys, senior director of project development for Tenaska.
The company is in discussions with various carbon-emitting businesses, including steel refineries, ethanol plants, and power plants. The Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub could also be a potential customer, Kairys said.
In Ohio, Tenaska is eyeing Harrison, Jefferson, and Carroll counties as prime places to store CO2 underground. The three counties are among the state’s top oil and gas producers and have a history of coal mining. Tenaska initially hopes to store captured carbon dioxide in the Knox formation, which ranges from 8,500 feet to 12,000 feet below the Earth’s surface, Kairys said. Second-stage storage would use another formation roughly 5,500 to 8,000 feet underground.
Other carbon sequestration projects could be on the horizon. The Great Plains Institute has identified roughly three dozen industrial facilities across the state as candidates for carbon capture projects. And even though the Trump administration is relaxing the environmental regulations that may motivate such efforts, 45Q tax credits expanded by the Inflation Reduction Act incentivize companies nationwide to develop storage projects.
Ohio’s House Bill 170 and Senate Bill 136 would give the state Department of Natural Resources “sole and exclusive authority to regulate carbon sequestration,” a power the agency also has over oil and gas production via existing law. The Ohio Supreme Court has interpreted the oil and gas law’s language to block local government regulation of drilling, even through general zoning rules that apply to other businesses.
If passed, the bills would similarly deprive counties and townships of any say over sequestration, said Bev Reed, an organizer for the Buckeye Environmental Network. “It’s … another really tragic thing that the Legislature is forcing on us.”
The bills would also authorize a “consolidation” process that operators can undertake to force landowners to allow carbon dioxide storage in their property’s subsurface “pore space” if owners of 70% of the remaining area for an injection project have signed on. The process is similar to that for unitization, which lets oil and gas companies drill through dissenting landowners’ properties.
The chief of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ oil and gas management division would be required to grant consolidation if it was “reasonably necessary to facilitate the underground storage of carbon dioxide.” A landowner could only object on the grounds that the facility’s design threatens “a commercially valuable mineral,” such as oil, gas, or coal.
“You don’t get to object and say this is dangerous, this is ill-conceived or for any other reason,” said Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, a professor at Cleveland State University College of Law. “Reasonably necessary is a very low standard” for forcing property owners to give up the use of their pore space, she added.
Asked to respond to advocacy groups’ complaints that the process is unfair, Tenaska’s Kairys focused instead on landowners’ potential for income.
“A [carbon capture and storage] project allows landowners to benefit from an untapped revenue stream — leasing pore space deep below the surface. This is a passive income stream that has little to no impact on the surface use of the land,” Kairys said. The bills’ structure for compensating landowners “mirrors existing state law for individuals being paid for their mineral rights,” she added.
The bills call for compensation, but it’s subject to adjustments for the developer’s expenses. Companies in oil and gas unitization cases often get to recoup twice their costs before they have to pay landowners more than the law’s minimum 12.5% royalty. Neither HB 170 nor SB 136 requires any minimum payment to landowners. Yet once carbon dioxide is stored underground, landowners presumably couldn’t use or drill through the storage formation.
The bills are currently in the House Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Energy Committee. Primary sponsors are all Republicans: Sen. Tim Schaffer, Sen. Brian Chavez, Rep. Bob Peterson, and Rep. Monica Robb Blasdel.
“Make no mistake, carbon capture storage technology is here,” Robb Blasdel testified before the House Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday. “This General Assembly must act to ensure Ohioans’ rights are protected and their voices are heard.” More hearings are expected in coming weeks.
Critics have dozens of questions, including whether sequestration projects make economic sense and whether they will significantly reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
“It’s very expensive to retrofit [industrial] facilities to be able to capture the carbon — and very energy-intensive,” Reed said. The process may even cumulatively add carbon pollution to the atmosphere, after accounting for the emissions produced when capturing the CO2 and injecting it underground, she noted.
Other questions deal with feared drops in property values, chemicals used in the carbon sequestration process, and the huge amounts of water that carbon capture technologies require.
People also worry about the potential for carbon dioxide to escape from underground storage or related pipelines, said Randi Pokladnik, an environmental scientist and volunteer for Save Ohio Parks.
Tenaska’s project will include a detailed emergency response plan, Kairys said, adding that carbon dioxide is not flammable. “At extremely high concentrations, carbon dioxide temporarily displaces oxygen. However, carbon dioxide dissipates very, very quickly.”
Dozens of people were hospitalized in Satartia, Mississippi, in 2020 when a carbon dioxide pipeline ruptured. Another carbon dioxide pipeline leaked last year near Sulphur, Louisiana.
Companies have injected carbon dioxide underground for years to stimulate extra production from oil and gas wells, but it has never been done at the large scale proposed now, Pokladnik said. She worries that gas could migrate upward through fractures in overlying rock layers or other wells, including many old, abandoned oil wells whose locations may be unknown.
“We’re in a world where we don’t have any expertise,” Pokladnik said.