Mr. Tommy Faucheux’s letter of 5 March in NOLA.COM was thought-provoking and I am respectfully compelled to respond. I am glad that someone who supports Carbon Sequestration has finally spoken up on the topic.   And,  I’d like to begin this discussion by saying Mr. Faucheux’s organization is a critical and important player in Louisiana’s economy and I have the highest respect for what they do.  But I believe we need to have a frank discussion about the utility of sequestering carbon in Louisiana.

I fully concur with the notion of American energy dominance.    We literally stand on top of enough energy resources to keep American moving and to sell on the world market for hundreds of years. We stand at the threshold of prosperity that we’ve never known if we pursue ENERGY dominance, accessing our great resources, using them ourselves and selling them on the world market.    But, with great respect, I would love to find out from Mr. Faucheaux what he means by “forward thinking” and just how sequestering carbon will contribute to American energy dominance.

I’m not speaking of Enhanced Oil Recovery, which is a good thing for our oil and gas ventures.  I’m speaking of creating permanent waste sites in remote parts of our state that will probably trap oil and gas below the earth when the carbon is injected.  When you put carbon in the ground, you probably won’t ever be able to go and get the oil and gas that is below it.

I’m also puzzled as to why the United States should subjugate itself to the cyclical whims of a loosely defined world market and torture our oil and gas industry by trying to make production cleaner for some obscure purpose.    Our oil and gas industries are already near the top in the world in terms of clean production. Further, it’s my appreciation that no other large country on earth is doing carbon sequestration, so I don’t understand the point of what we are doing.   I certainly can’t understand how doing it will enhance our oil and gas pursuits.     We are already a world leader in clean energy production and ratcheting it up for the purpose of complying with an already discredited climate initiative does not seem to make sense.

At its root, carbon sequestration is a government initiative tied to forcing the US to comply with world expectations for carbon emissions.  The end state goal of all of this (in the eyes of the proponents) is changing the earth’s climate.    I encourage anyone interested in the topic of climate issues to check out Professor Steven Koonin’s book “Unsettled.”  This book is a great review of the utility of many things we are doing in our current day and age—including capturing carbon.

The science on climate change is emphatically not settled and I think it is very risky to embrace something that may well be harmful for a purpose that is not achievable, nor necessary.

I am hopeful for a good dialog on this subject and also very hopeful that our State won’t make decisions now that we sincerely regret in the future.

Respectfully,
Charles A. Owen, LtCol (ret), USAF, Ph.D.
State Representative, District 30 (Vernon and Beauregard Parishes)