Curtis Jundt Letter to DOGE and Comments of Curtis Jundt Before the ND Legislative Senate/House Natural Resources Committee
Curtis Jundt, Former Pipeline Engineer
Message to D.O.G.E.
“Its Time to Eliminate the Carbon Capture AND (Faux) Green Energy Boondoggle Taxpayer Money Grab Schemes that are Set to Wreak Further Havoc on America’s Financial Wellbeing While Providing No Credible ROI (Benefit) to Our Country, (We-the- People) for the Potential Addition of Trillions of Dollars to America’s National Debt”
TO: President-elect Donald J. Trump, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance AND D.O.G.E Leaders Mr. Elon Musk and Mr. Vivek Ramaswamy,
The August 16, 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of the president Joe Biden Administration, and enacted by 117th United States Congress, was fraudulently labeled to intentionally bamboozle the America People into believing that it would actually “reduce” inflation that has been running rampant and out-of-control since the Biden Administration took office January 20, 2021. The most onerous taxpayer handouts set- forth in the IRA involve an estimated $1.2 Trillion in energy and climate tax subsidies and tax credits while estimated to grow to between $2 and $4 Trillion by the year 2050. With a National Debt of more than $36.3 Trillion at the time of this writing – and growing at more than $2.5 Trillion a year under the current political environment – our Country can ill-afford to spend money on so-called “beneficial climate solutions” and “alternative green energy technologies” that are extremely costly and unproven at best. To “continue” to burden this Country’s financial wellbeing that will evermore put our Nation’s ability to compete in the Global Economy at risk while also impacting our Nation’s ability to fund a strong and vibrant Military; that requires ever-increasing funding to demonstrate “Peace-through-Strength.” As an American Taxpayer for the last 50 years of continued employment, I am deeply offended by the unfettered and reckless handout of our Federal (and State) Taxpayer dollars being sold to citizens on the primary premise that this spending (aka “investment” by the anti-fossil fuel advocates) will somehow help avert deceptive “Climate Crisis” and the impending doom of humankind. There is NO credible projection or prognostication that the spending of Trillions of American taxpayer dollars on “climate beneficial and green energy initiatives” will provide ANY measurable (or credible) benefit to the environment or climate whatsoever! (never mind that climate is a global matter). And insofar as the “Climate Change” soothsayers go, not even one of their decades ago gloom-and-doom predictions has ever come to fruition while they continue the utterly false Narrative that CO2 Emissions are the devil. Only in the “Church-of-Climate-Change Worshipers” are CO2 emissions “the devil” when in-fact an ever-growing population will benefit substantially by
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Curtis Jundt Message to D.O.G.E.
increased CO2 levels in the air we breathe no differently than why a greenhouse injects CO2 to increase photosynthesis that accelerates plant growth while emitting oxygen into our air. If these fraudsters have their way and suck Trillions of dollars out of the Global Economy to suck millions and billions of metric tons out CO2 out of our breathable air, I will guarantee the result will be irreparable HARM to the carbon cycle balance in our environment and result in adverse impacts to humankind’s survivability on this planet. The ONLY benefit will be to the already sinfully rich domestic and foreign investors in all the CCUS and so-called faux-green/faux-renewable energy initiatives that is nothing more than an egregious “wealth transfer” of America’s taxpayer dollars to their pocketbooks (that results in further increasing of our Country’s National Debt!)
Furthermore, the U.S. has been subsidizing ethanol production since 1978 and now that industry is aggressively looking to gain substantially more tax subsidies and credits through the IRA’s enhancement of the 45Q and Z tax subsidies/credits that funds “Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS)” (along with other CCUS initiatives like Direct Air Capture, Hydrogen Economy, faux0green Anhydrous Ammonia, etc – none of which are necessities to the wellbeing of our Country and humankind).
[Sidebar note: CCUS in ethanol production is targeting the capture of CO2 emissions produced by “only” the ethanol plant’s fermentation vessels while leaving as much as 80% of the CO2 emissions behind from the burning of billions of cubic feet of natural gas at every Ethanol Plant. It’s the burning of significant amounts of natural gas that enables fermentation to occur in the first place].
The CCUS initiative involves newer technology to Capture the Ethanol Plant CO2 produced by only the fermentation vessels that must be then dehydrated to a very dry state (since CO2+Water produces Carbonic Acid that is damaging to carbon steel pipelines), compressed to high pressures exceeding 2,000 PSIG and transported thousands of miles to a State (like North Dakota) deemed to have the sufficient geologic formation where the CO2 is further compressed to between 3,500 and 4,000 PSIG injection pressures to send the CO2 into a saline formation 1.5 miles below surface where it is predicted by “Models” to migrate across some 300,000 acres in 12 years of injection. To-date, the most advanced IRA incentive CCUS project has been pursued by a company created by and Ag and Ethanol company named “Summit Ag” who formed a series of LLC’s under the umbrella company “Summit Carbon Solutions, LLC (SCS)” to gather (capture) CO2 from 57+ Ethanol Plants across five states and transport it through
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Curtis Jundt Message to D.O.G.E.
more than 2,500 miles of pipeline network to North Dakota. The North Dakota portion of this pipeline is currently proposed at 24-inch carbon steel pipeline with a maximum pressure of 2,183 PSIG. Given that CO2 is 1.53X to1.58X heavier than air, is an asphyxiant, can cause cognitive impairment at 3% to 4% and can be immediately fatal at concentrations 8 to 10% if rescue does not happen quickly. And so it’s obvious, the concerns to nearby landowners, rural schools, villages, towns and cities is valid and with merit. After several years of SCS working to secure pipeline easements along its proposed route, few of the landowners or citizens living within a potential impact zone have been told or shown what the potential impact(s) are should the CO2 pipeline rupture in the vicinity of where they live and work and consequently they are NOT convinced that they will be kept safe in ANY failure situation of the high pressure CO2 pipeline! This is not me crying chicken little. It actually happened in Satartia, MS on February 22, 2020 on a calm 70 degree Fahrenheit Friday evening at a pipeline operating pressure of just 1,402 PSIG. The pipeline operator/owner was Denbury Gulf Coast – a season decades long operator and developer of CO2 pipelines. The current proposed CO2 project by SCS is by a company whose executive team (save one) have NEVER developed, built or operated ANY kind of pipeline let alone a high pressure supercritical hazardous CO2 pipeline that will be the longest haul, highest volume CO2 pipeline ever built in the U.S.
The initial SCS propaganda and “Narrative” presented to the landowners across five (5) States – and eventually the public – is that “CO2 is what we exhale, its in our soda pop and beer and is safer than any pipeline currently operating in your State; including natural gas pipelines (paraphrased)”. The “Narrative” further includes statements of “5,400 miles and 40+ years of CO2 pipelines have been operating safely in the U.S. for decades without a single fatality while glossing over the fact that nearly all those CO2 pipeline miles are located rurally and for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) – (and never mind that natural gas pipelines are more safe with 130+ years and more than 3 million miles operating across the U.S.). The routing of the 2,500-mile SCS CO2 pipeline includes locating very close to landowner dwellings, rural schools, towns and populated urban cities (at many locations 500 feet or less from dwellings) including wrapping around east and north primary growth plates of a metropolis region (Bismarck-Mandan ND) with a population greater than 100 thousand citizens. The terminus of the CO2 pipeline (the final destination of CO2) is sequestration area about 40-miles NW of the Bismarck-Mandan area where the first-ever permanent sequestration of high-pressure
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Curtis Jundt Message to D.O.G.E.
CO2 at a rate of more than 50,000 metric tons per day in t the Broom Creek Formation. The sequestration process in and of itself comes with a litany of risks that could mimic, or be even worse than, the 2024 CO2 sequestration cessation at ADM’s Decatur Illinois ethanol facility that has been injecting about 1-million metric tons of CO2 emissions for the past 7-years. Compare that to SCS’s plan to inject up to 19-million metric tons per year in North Dakota. It is not unreasonable to see that the SCS proposed CCUS 2500- mile CO2 pipeline project comes with a litany of “known-unknowns” and even “unknown-unknowns” that could impact citizens health, safety, financial and economic wellbeing while being funded solely by IRA taxpayer subsidies and tax credits. And for the love of God can someone PLEASE tell me (us) what is the credible forecast of offsetting Benefit(s)to Citizens of our State (and Country) for the significant COSTS and envisioned RISKS to be burdened upon the American People?
Finally, no matter your position on the cause of Climate Change, it’s the solutions being imposed on the People that matter most. The existential threat to the American People (and our planet’s Humankind), is NOT “Climate Change” Joe Biden! It’s the ever- increasing Trillions of Dollars being spent on no-impact solutions that are further going to bankrupt our Country and impoverish people around the World; especially developing Nations should they buy into – or be forced to comply with – the “Peak Insanity” solutions of CCUS and the other needless unproven faux-beneficial “climate solutions” and “green energy initiatives.” America cannot afford to continue increasing our National Debt that already has an annual interest obligation that exceeds our Military Budget. That is insanity and a disgrace that our elected politicians have allowed this to happen! We are on a financial and economic proverbial death-spiral as a Country and must stop the spending of taxpayer dollars to fund unnecessary and unjustifiable (faux) green energy initiatives including the “Peak Insanity” of sucking life-supporting CO2 out of the air we breathe. Without a sufficient level of CO2 in our breathable air, we will jeopardize humankind’s food security that has improved substantially over the last 100 years even as our planet’s population has quadrupled!
~~Curtis Jundt/December 29, 2024
Download Comments here: CurtisJundt – Letter to D.O.G.E. – 29 December 2024
Comments of Curtis Jundt
Before the ND Legislative Senate/House Natural Resources Committee
January 30, 2025
Good morning (afternoon) Senate Committee Chair Patten (House Committee Chair Porter) and Legislator Committee Members:
My name is Curtis Jundt. I am here today in support the Senate (House) Bill before you along with several others Bill’s proposed that are part-and-parcel to CO2 Pipeline transportation and CCUS (Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage) where CO2 has been lumped in and treated on par with the true transportation Commodities of Crude Petroleum (Crude Oil and Its Refined Residual Fuels), Coal and Natural Gas.
A couple of Philosophical Comments to Preface my Testimony:
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*I disagree with the former U.S. president who repeatedly said that “Climate Change is an Existential Threat to America – I believe the most significant Existential Threat to our Country is the ever-increasing National Debt*
*How can anyone be against the “Green New Deal (Scam) – that is 100% about reducing “carbon emissions” that is primarily CO2 emissions – and STILL be in favor of our Country and State spending Trillions of dollars on CCUS? It’s an oxymoron and an imponderable!*
I’ve spent my entire nearly 43-year engineering career in the energy industry with emphasis on building Natural Gas-producing assets, energy project economics and micro-macroeconomics within the energy Industry as a whole. Natural Gas, like Crude Oil and Refined Products, are true Commodities, derived from the word “Commerce” (the activity of Buying and Selling especially on a large scale) – all traded as Commodities on the NYSE. A “Common Carrier” transportation Company, like a pipeline for example, transport a Commodity for benefit of “Public Convenience and Necessity”. Pursuant to Article 1, Section 16 of the North Dakota Constitution:
“…..a Public Use or a Public Purpose does not include benefits of Economic Development, including and increase in tax base, tax revenues, employment, or general economic health” and continues “Private Property Shall Not be taken for the use of, or ownership by, any private individual or entity, unless that Property is necessary for conducting a common carrier or utility business (emphasis supplied)”
So trying to sell the Summit CO2 pipeline beyond its original purpose of CO2 sequestration by saying that is vital to the survival/sustenance/growth of ND’s oil shale production by use of CO2 in EOR to increase recoverable reserves of oil and gas – that then equates to sustaining or growing the State’s oil tax collections – does not justify a CO2 pipeline as a “Common Carrier” transporter. Nevertheless, for the first twelve (12) years, the CO2 pipeline transportation will be strictly used for permanent sequestration and DOES NOT in any way fit that
definition. First, there is no “Commerce” taking place in the CCUS-CO2 pipeline
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transportation. Secondly, there is NO GOOD or “Public Convenience and Necessity” benefiting the Public, the citizens of North Dakota. In fact it’s quite the opposite. A CO2 pipeline, like Summit CS, seeking to take advantage of the Inflation Reduction Act’s 45Q/Z/V/etc CCUS tax subsidies and/or credits is proposed to happen at a Public Cost. No citizen, landowner, commercial or residential customer will ever be able to tap into Summit’s CO2 pipeline for any purpose except, possibly in the future, a mega-Meat Processing/Packing Plant using CO2 to euthanize the livestock. Safety is a much greater justified citizen concern. In addition to CO2 being used to euthanize animals (Hitler used it to do the same to humans), there are CO2 weapons of mass destruction that exist in military arsenals around the world that once dropped, turn the landscape into a total realm of euthanizing every living breathing bug, rodent, wildlife, livestock and humans as the heavier than air CO2 spreads overland as an asphyxiant.
So here now we have the taxpayers paying for the CO2 pipeline ROI (Summit CS will generate $1.6 billion per year totally $19.4 billion (or more) in 12 years in taxpayer subsidies/credits) the CO2 pipeline comes with a very different set of operational and safety risks to landowners, towns, cities and Counties along its route that are substantially greater due to the more complex thermophysical properties of CO2 and thermodynamic challenges of transporting CO2 in a high pressure supercritical state. When released from a CO2 pipeline rupture, dense-phase CO2 at 60 Ibs/cubic feet (or more) in a 24-inch CO2 2,183PSIG/50 degrees Fahrenheit goes through multiple phase changes eventually becoming an odorless, colorless gas spreading along the ground at 1.53X the weight of air. At concentrations of 3 to 4% CO2 by volume in our breathable air exposure in minutes can begin to cause problems for humans while at concentrations of 8% and higher you have minutes, not hours, to save yourself and your family or be rescued.
In a Natural Gas pipeline, a rupture from the same pipeline conditions has a density of less than 9lbs/cubic feet and when venting to the atmosphere in a single-phase gas that is 1/2 the weight of air tends to disperse more easily.
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Believing that CO2 pipelines are as more safe than a Natural Gas pipeline – or any other pipeline running through ND is – in my experience and belief – patently false! For this and other reasons, it has been an unintended consequence for ND’s Legislators to have treated CO2 as though it were in the same category as crude oil, refined petroleum products or Natural Gas while inserting CO2 throughout our Century Code to receive the same treatment as the other energy hazardous fluid and gases. To further support how different CO2 transportation is from Natural Gas pipeline transportation, I have provided below USDOT’s PHMSA’s January 15, 2025 release of its 346-Page DRAFT Proposed Rulemaking “To Strengthen Safety Requirements for Carbon Dioxide Pipelines”
(End Direct Testimony – Due to 5-Minute Time Limit)
Supplemental Testimony/information for reading at your leisure: Download file below:
Curtis Jundt – Testimony to the ND Legislature In Support of HB1292-1210-1414-SB2322-2320 – January 30 2025
Other Comments:
Former pipeline engineer explain impact of CO2 pipelines in the region
https://hubcityradio.com/former-pipeline-engineer-explain-impact-of-co2-pipelines-in-the-region/