Last July, PA legislators voted for an extremely consequential bill to open the state to Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). The bill was introduced by Senator Gene Yaw and signed by Governor Josh Shapiro. Although there were many opponents on both sides of the aisle, the majority of members on both sides of the aisle voted in favor of the bill.

Carbon Capture and Storage is one of the false climate solutions being promoted by the fossil fuel industry so it can keep doing business as usual. On its own, CCS is a failure, falling far short of promised capture rates with no guarantee that what is captured will remain sequestered.

In Pennsylvania and other states where blue hydrogen hubs are planned, CCS is the technology that turns dirty gray hydrogen blue. The colors have been assigned by scientists to differential the feedstocks and processes used to produce hydrogen. Gray and blue hydrogen are produced from methane in a process called steam methane reforming. Even if CCS wasn't a failure, it wouldn't account for the dangerous methane emissions upstream, downstream, and during hydrogen production.

We expressed our opposition to the bill because of how little is known about CCS. For decades, CO2 has been captured, but it has been used for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). As its name suggests, EOR is just more fossil fuel extraction. Now that storage of captured CO2 is the goal, little can be drawn from what is known about EOR because the processes and goals are quite different.

When legislators returned to the Capitol last month, we presented them with a brief published by the Better Path Coalition and No False Solutions PA called "Too Infrequently Asked Questions About Carbon Capture and Storage." The brief looks at what we do know about CCS - the costs involved, the failure of the technology to achieve anything close to the capture rates promised, the outrageous taxpayer subsidies the industry relies on because there's no profit in disposing of carbon waste.

Please tell Governor Shapiro and your legislators to read our heavily-sourced brief before taking any further action to bring CCS to Pennsylvania. We've provided you with a letter you can send as written or with your revisions.

Learn more about CCS and other false climate solutions on the No False Solutions PA website.

This is the first action of our PA Energy Month campaign that will look at a different topics each week. Next week, hydrogen.