California’s first project to bury climate-warming gases receives major approval

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In a major step toward California’s first attempt to bury climate-warming gases underground, the Kern County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved Monday a project on an extensive oil and gas field.

The project by California Resources Corp., the state’s largest oil and gas producer, will capture millions of tons of carbon dioxide and inject it into the ground in the western San Joaquin Valley, south of Buttonwillow.

The Carbon Terra Vault project is part of a broader effort by the oil and gas industry to remain viable in a state trying to decarbonize. While the company still faces additional steps, the county’s approval is an important development that moves the project forward.

The Newsom administration has endorsed carbon capture and sequestration technology as critical to California’s efforts to address climate change. This technology plays an important role in the government’s action plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next twenty years.

During a packed four-hour meeting in Bakersfield, community members and environmental justice advocates expressed concerns about air pollution from the project and the safety of injecting carbon dioxide underground, while oil industry representatives and local supporters said this would give Kern County an economic boost.

“Carbon Terra Vault will spur new polluting infrastructure in Kern County,” said Ileana Navarro, a community organizer with the Central California Environmental Justice Network based in Bakersfield. “This will not clean our air.”

Francisco Leon, CEO of California Resources Corp., told county regulators that the project would preserve good-paying jobs while reducing carbon emissions. He said the company is committed to investing in the community and preparing the region’s employees for careers in the emerging field of “carbon management,” including through a partnership with Kern Community College.

“When we talk about an energy transition, the jobs have to be just as good, they can’t just be one to one,” Leon said at the hearing. “The state of California wants an energy transition. This is how you do it, with projects that deliver results on all fronts. We are ready to go.”

Before construction can begin, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must give final sign-off to the project. Earlier this year, the agency approved design permits for the company to build four wells to inject carbon dioxide into the ground, and the company is seeking two more. In addition, if the company wants to qualify for state clean fuel credits, the California Air Resources Board must certify the company as eligible.

According to the environmental impact report, construction would take about two years for the carbon capture plants and a year for the pipelines.

Experts say the Kern County location is important because the San Joaquin Valley is ideal for carbon storage. According to the company, the EPA permits are the first in the nation issued for a depleted oil and gas field.

As California’s oil production has declined, the oil and gas industry and unions say the technology could preserve jobs while ensuring the industry captures and stores more greenhouse gases than it emits.

But environmental advocates opposed the project, saying polluting fossil fuel industries must disappear altogether as California transitions to an economy powered by renewable energy. They say the technology could extend the life of oil and gas and that the project would emit air pollutants that could pose health risks to low-income communities in the valley.

Gordon Nipp, vice president of a local chapter of the Sierra Club, called the project a “complicated plan” that will waste money and create few local jobs.

“If the carbon were just left in the ground to begin with, it would be a much simpler and more effective way to tackle the climate crisis, and there would be no additional dangerous emissions into the air,” he said.

But County Supervisor Phillip Peters criticized the environmental groups. “I don’t see any projects from them that create jobs, that do anything to benefit the environment,” he said. Peters, who used to work in the Kern County oil fields, added, “I was really surprised by this argument that this oil industry infrastructure is being deliberately placed in underserved communities…Typically we’re putting oil industry infrastructure equipment industry where there is oil.”