Analysis of proposed carbon capture projects in the US power sector and co-location with environmental justice communities.

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of new federal investments and policy support for "carbon management" technologies, such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), as a strategy to mitigate the United States' greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). The equity implications of deploying these technologies-particularly their impacts on low-income communities and communities of color, or environmental justice (EJ) communities-have been understudied. A prominent example of this is seen in the US power sector, where CCS has been proposed as a means to mitigate the carbon dioxide emissions of fossil fuel-fired power plants, one of the major sources of GHGs in the country. EJ community leaders alongside some environmental organizations and researchers have voiced deep concerns about how CCS may exacerbate environmental injustice, given that it is itself input-intensive and can prolong the life of polluting fossil fuel infrastructure, which is disproportionately sited in low-income communities and communities of color. To begin to fill the gap in analyses of the equity implications of carbon management, we conducted a spatial analysis of CCS projects proposed for the power sector and their co-location with EJ communities. Compiling a proposed project list from four CCS databases, we found that 33 of the 35 projects were located in EJ communities, and that additionally, 423 of the 497 (or 85%) EJ census block groups located within three miles of at least one proposed project currently face heightened environmental stress. These results illustrate both the feasibility and the necessity of analyzing the co-location of proposed CCS buildout in EJ communities, and add to the nascent body of literature evaluating the impacts of carbon management technologies such as CCS on these communities.