Stay up-to-date with free briefings on topics that matter to all Californians. Subscribe to CalMatters today for nonprofit news in your inbox.
In a major step toward California’s first effort to bury climate-warming gases underground, Kern County’s Board of Supervisors Monday unanimously approved a project on a sprawling oil and gas field.
The project by California Resources Corp., the state’s largest producer of oil and gas, will capture millions of tons of carbon dioxide and inject it into the ground in the western San Joaquin Valley south of Buttonwillow.
The Carbon Terra Vault project is part of a broader bid by the oil and gas industry to remain viable in a state that is attempting to decarbonize. Although the company still faces additional steps, the county approval is a key development that advances the project.
The Newsom administration has endorsed carbon capture and sequestration technology as critical to California’s efforts to tackle climate change — it plays a major role in the administration’s action plan for slashing greenhouse gases over the next 20 years.
At a packed four-hour meeting in Bakersfield, community members and environmental justice advocates voiced concerns about air pollution from the project and the safety of injecting carbon dioxide underground, while oil industry representatives and local supporters said it would give Kern County an economic boost.
“Carbon Terra Vault will incentivize new polluting infrastructure throughout Kern County,” said Ileana Navarro, a community organizer with the Central California Environmental Justice Network, based in Bakersfield. “This will not clean our air.”
Francisco Leon, CEO of California Resources Corp., told county supervisors that the project would preserve high-paying jobs while reducing carbon emissions. He said the company is committed to investing in the community and preparing the region’s workers for careers in the emerging field of “carbon management,” including through a partnership with Kern Community College.
“When we talk about an energy transition, the jobs have to be just as good, they cannot be just one-for-one,” Leon said, speaking at the hearing. “The state of California wants an energy transition. This is how you do it, with projects that deliver on every front. We’re ready to go.”
Before construction can begin, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would have to give the project a final signoff. Earlier this year, the agency approved draft permits for the company to build four wells for injecting carbon dioxide into the ground, and the company is seeking two more. In addition, for the company to be eligible for state clean-fuel credits, the California Air Resources Board must certify it as eligible.
Construction would take about two years for the carbon capture plants and a year for the pipelines, according to the environmental impact report.
Experts say the Kern County location is significant because the San Joaquin Valley is ideal for carbon storage. The EPA permits are the first in the nation to be issued for a depleted oil and gas field, according to the company.
As oil output has slowed in California, the oil and gas industry and labor unions say the technology could preserve jobs while ensuring that the industry captures and stores more greenhouse gases than it emits.
But environmental advocates opposed the project, saying that polluting fossil fuel industries need to go altogether as California transitions to an economy powered by renewable energy. They say the technology could prolong the life of oil and gas and that the project would emit air pollutants that could pose health risks to low-income communities in the valley.
Gordon Nipp, vice chair of a local Sierra Club chapter, called the project a “convoluted scheme” that will waste money and create few local jobs.
“If the carbon were just left in the ground to begin with, that would be a lot simpler and a more effective way of addressing the climate crisis, and there wouldn’t be these additional dangerous emissions into the air,” he said.
But County Supervisor Phillip Peters criticized the environmental groups. “I don’t see any projects from them that are creating jobs, that are doing anything to benefit the environment,” he said. Peters, who used to work in Kern County oilfields, added that “I was really surprised by this argument that this infrastructure for the oil industry is being purposely located in underserved communities…we usually site infrastructure equipment for the oil industry where there’s oil.”