MCFARLAND, Calif. (CN) — A biomass and carbon capture project slated for California’s Central Valley won’t be moving forward after the company leading the effort withdrew its permitting application.
The move to withdraw the application came after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency contacted San Joaquin Renewables about discrepancies over whether carbon dioxide waste would be injected under the site, some two miles from McFarland — a city about 25 miles north of Bakersfield.
The Center for Biological Diversity praised the move. An attorney for the center, Victoria Bogdan Tejeda, told Courthouse News that it shows regulators like the federal environmental agency are properly scrutinizing carbon capture permits.
“Carbon capture and storage is a dangerous distraction from real climate action,” Tejeda said in a statement. “We need our government officials to put these projects under the microscope, ask tough questions and refuse to rubberstamp them. If this project ever resurfaces, we’ll be there for the fight.”
San Joaquin Renewables in a 2021 press release said the project would convert orchard residuals and shells into renewable natural gas that would be sold as fuel. The project would also sequester carbon dioxide in a well on the site. The enclosed system would have made a non-fossil fuel type of natural gas, a substitute to diesel and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
However, in August 2023, the federal environmental agency contacted the company about a discrepancy in two documents. In one, a notice for the draft environmental impact report, it stated no carbon dioxide injection would occur on site. In its application, the company proposed an on-site injection into a well.
While the company told the agency it didn’t plan on any on-site injection into a well, it hadn’t withdrawn its application by February. It gave San Joaquin Renewables until March 29 to withdraw it, or potentially face having it denied.
The company formally withdrew its application on March 29. The center learned about the move on Thursday.
San Joaquin Renewables couldn't be reached for comment.
“It’s a great win for the community of McFarland for San Joaquin Renewables to no longer be moving forward with their polluting biomass with carbon capture facility,” said Ileana Navarro, a community organizer at the Central California Environmental Justice Network, in a statement. “We found most residents were either unaware of this dangerous project being proposed just two miles from their homes, or completely opposed to it.”
The application called for up to 1,200 tons of carbon dioxide to be injected a day. The center said models showed the impacted area would extend beyond the well and would reach Delano, about seven miles north of McFarland.
According to the center, carbon capture and storage compresses carbon dioxide, thereby making it an asphyxiant. A leak can hurt or potentially kill people.
Additionally, Tejeda said the carbon capture and storage facility would have needed its own gas-fired power plant. The center said that plant would have been in one of the worst spots in the country for air quality.
“Carbon capture storage itself requires a lot of energy,” Tejeda told Courthouse News.
Addressing claims that biomass is a form of clean energy that helps clear forests of flammable fuels, Tejeda pointed to a report from the center stating otherwise. In that report, the center explains that biomass emits carbon dioxide. It’s also ineffective at reducing the threat of wildfire, as home hardening techniques are better. Biomass also is expensive and requires subsidies paid by taxpayers.
“It can be more climate polluting than coal,” Tejeda said.
The center said this is the second time a carbon capture and storage company has filed an improper permit application. Clean Energy Systems in April 2022 withdrew its carbon injection application after the federal environmental agency ordered it.
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