In an Aug. 1 letter, James Watson, executive director of the American Petroleum Institute Illinois, took issue with a recent Sun-Times editorial that questioned the need for CO2 pipeline projects to transport CO2 — mostly from other states — and store it underground here in Illinois. Let me take issue with several of Watson’s talking points.
While it is true that CO2 pipelines are nothing new, the pipeline network proposed by Navigator CO2 Ventures is unlike any of the 5,000-plus miles of CO2 pipelines that currently exist. Existing pipelines primarily connect natural sources of CO2 to oil fields to be used for enhanced oil recovery. The Navigator system is larger and more complex than any in existence. It will collect CO2 from multiple capture sites, pressurize it, divert some to offloading stations and deliver the rest to storage sites in the state. This is a different kind of pipeline. Past safety performance does not apply.
