LA's own U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins weighs in on Carbon Capture/Carbon Sequestration Industry

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The entire citizenry, including the legislature, the executive, activists, industry, and the media… should stop talking about Carbon Capture and Carbon Sequestration as if it was one
thing. There is no “CCS”. There is CC and CS, two very different industrial operations.

There are virtually zero concerns with the emergence of a Carbon Capture industry. CC is not a threat to the citizenry. Carbon Capture is 100% an investment risk for industry itself, and so what. If board rooms full of millionaires want to invest billions of their own money on massive construction projects to install huge vacuums in the air that suck micro particles of carbon pollution out of the air and transition that pollution through chemical/pressure/temperature process into a high carbon jello-like product on the hope that worldwide industry will buy carbon credits in order to neutralize their own carbon footprint and in doing so sell their product or service as a (much more expensive) “net-zero” green alternative, then we should all say good luck with that. It’s your money, your risk, it’s crazy and it won’t work in reality, most of us think, but good luck. That’s CC, Carbon Capture, and I’m certainly supportive of massive new construction projects in Louisiana that bring excellent jobs and economic opportunity.

CS, Carbon Sequestration, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter. CS is the process of transporting the CC final carbon product, the carbon jelly, through pipelines to a wellhead that is set to inject the stuff deep into the earth into geological formations of porous rock that decades ago held crude oil and natural gas.

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The Carbon Sequestration process sounds familiar because it is familiar, but in reverse. We’ve been extracting natural carbon products, crude oil and natural gas, through deep ground pipes and wellheads for over 100 years. CS is essentially the opposite.

So far, no sweat right? Billionaires build massive plants with their own money, bringing high paying jobs and economic growth, and we use old school generationally proven pipelines and wellhead operations to inject the end product of CC (the carbon gel) into porous rock fields under the earth’s surface. Here’s where it gets threatening and interesting… Carbon
Sequestration carries a particularly concerning risk, as well as a particularly interesting twist.

The risk is not the pipeline process nor the injection process, we’ve been running pipelines and wellheads for generations quite successfully, the actual risk of Carbon Sequestration is in the potential failure of the porous rock fields.

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Yes, we still have a potential trillion dollar industry opportunity, but also yes, We the People have to balance risk against benefit, and in this case, although the benefit is incredibly high down the line, the risk is also incredibly high, right away. So, yeah, Houston, we have a problem.

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I’ve studied CC and CS exhaustively since big Oil&Gas industry came to my office in DC 5 years ago and laid out this whole plan. It was envisioned as huge money, unheard of money, but I’m not driven by money and I sensed danger lurking, and this whole thing was essentially new, so I told the industry guys that I’d need to research CC and CS and the carbon product itself on my own. It was presented as trillion dollar growth, but I backed up. As an investigator, I needed to know more, a lot more. So, I started researching.

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Do your own research on this, as I have, and perhaps you’ll arrive at a conclusion shared by scientists and engineers around the world… the jello-like carbon product that the Carbon Sequestration industry is trying to ram into the earth, at considerable (though decreasing, which I’ll cover in a bit) risk… is like gold. Jello-like, carbon gold. Any reasonable man will, I think, admit, after just a few hours of calm, objective research, that the stuff they’re talking about pumping through wellheads into porous rock geological fields, is potentially very, very valuable. And this is where the CC/CS story becomes even more interesting… the carbon jelly gold.

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As it solidifies into a form of solid carbon, it basically becomes completely harmless. However, it also becomes unretractable, so… goodbye gold. Now, ask yourself, why would wealthy men invest millions to pump gold into the ground where it will quickly become worthless? Perhaps the answer to that question will answer many others. My personal assessment is that the Carbon Sequestration industry intends to seek legal control of the carbon gold, which the industry refers to as polymer gel or CO2 triggered gel, until the world figures out that it’s actually quite valuable, and then the Carbon Sequestration industry can transition to the Carbon Gel Storage industry with massive new storage tanks that preserve the gel in a transportable state, so that they can sell it.

That’s pretty much the end game, the thirty thousand foot view of the whole issue, as I see it. Admittedly, maybe I’m wrong about some of this, although I’ve invested hundreds of hours studying this emerging scientific and engineering technology over the course of the last five years, the truth is nobody has all the answers about CC and CS and the potential value of the CC end-product, the carbon gel.

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I’m just a regular American man, in service to We the People. I do not claim to be an engineer, nor a geologist, nor a chemist… but I am a Congressional servant, and as a conservative Republican Constitutionalist, I absolutely support 10th Amendment States’ rights, which is why I’ve been mostly quiet publicly about the whole “CCS” war, which has been rather ugly. I’ve written this letter today, here at my desk, because it is appropriate, at this juncture, that I share my humble assessment on this divisive issue. The truth is, in my opinion, the Carbon Capture industry presents zero threat to We the People and in fact CC development could provide incredible, even unprecedented economic opportunity for the people of Louisiana. However, the equal truth is, in my opinion, the Carbon Sequestration industry does indeed present some legitimately frightening risk, but on a decreasing scale over time, while it also could provide incredible, even unprecedented economic opportunity.

Finally, a more attractive truth… one rarely discussed in the trench warfare of “CCS” that has been devouring Louisiana politics… a fascinating absolute truth about the whole issue, is that the carbon gel is quite possibly golden gel. Think about this, my Brothers and Sisters… Louisiana industry would literally earn billions from selling the carbon credits of vacuumed pollution particles to “net zero” buyers worldwide, getting paid to produce a carbon gel that is (likely) incredibly valuable. Then, Louisiana industry would sell that carbon gel product worldwide to manufacturers of batteries and computer chips and solar panels and a thousand other products.

This thing, this “CCS” war that’s eating Louisiana alive, doesn’t have to be a war at all. Louisiana is sitting on generational wealth with this emerging, layered industry that begins with sucking pollution out of the air and ends with a steady production of golden gel. I encourage everyone involved to just take a breath, slow down, and don’t freak out. I can see a future where Louisiana sits on top of an emergent trillion dollar industry, no lakes or rivers or aquifers are threatened, and every Louisiana community shares in the wealth. In the meantime, I am honored to serve you, I am humbled to be your Brother, and I remain at your avail.

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