OPINION:
For well over a decade, the Boilermakers union has beaten the proverbial drum as an advocate for common sense in the debate about energy production and climate change mitigation, seeking real—and realistic—solutions.
While extremists, misguided evangelists and self-serving politicians on all sides of the issue pound their chests and loudly shout their divisive (usually hypocritical and often simply wrong) rhetoric that serves only to stymie any real efforts to save our planet, Boilermakers have been busy studying, steadily raising awareness and building traction around a critical solution: carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS).
This is not a new role for the Boilermakers union. Throughout our history, Boilermakers have been vital advocates and instigators as new technologies have emerged that both satisfy the ever-growing demand for energy and protect our planet.
In fact, Boilermakers have spent decades installing bag houses, scrubbers, dry and wet precipitators and other controls to successfully reduce particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, mercury and other emissions.
CCUS is the logical and meaningful next step in pollution control as the world grapples with strategies to quickly lower carbon dioxide emissions. The truth is: In order to maintain affordable, reliable energy and remain energy independent from nations, like Russia, that would leverage dependence as a weapon, we need a mix of all energy resources, from gas and coal to wind and solar and more, all working together and built or retrofit with CCUS.
We have written, spoken extensively and even produced a film about how and why CCUS is a solution that can truly reduce CO2—and preserve jobs, economies and social stability. CCUS is the bridge to our clean energy future.
CCUS is also, in part, what led the Boilermakers to Ian MacGregor. MacGregor is a visionary, innovator, doer, builder and entrepreneur based in Alberta, Canada, and Boilermakers were first introduced to him to help build his Sturgeon Refinery (now part of North West Refining) in Alberta.
That refinery project was the first greenfield refinery to be built in Canada since 1984, and it is the world’s first refinery designed to capture CO2 process emissions from the outset. MacGregor also believes it to be the largest “blue” hydrogen plant in the world.
Further, he developed and constructed the Alberta Carbon Trunk line (ACTL), the world’s first and largest hub cluster to transport and store carbon dioxide.
Ian MacGregor is the kind of person who likes to tackle big problems, and he only takes on problems he is certain he can solve—problems like meeting energy needs while mitigating climate change.
MacGregor‘s next project aims to do exactly that. His project, Hydrogen Naturally, is set to finance, build and operate hydrogen plants that will produce large quantities of clean hydrogen while removing millions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere.
He will do this by using scrap wood fiber as feedstock in a closed gasification process that, through partial combustion, produces hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The hydrogen becomes a valuable energy commodity, and the carbon dioxide is liquified and sequestered permanently underground.
It’s a smart idea rooted in science and reality. Trees harvested from forestry operations are already replaced as a part of a continuous replenishing cycle. If the wood scraps are left to rot or are burned in slash piles, they contribute to the current problem by emitting CO2.
By instead turning the wood waste into pellets for feedstock to produce hydrogen, and by replanting with climate resilient tree species to create natural carbon sinks, the process becomes not just net-zero in CO2 emissions, but actually carbon negative. Because of this, MacGregor calls the end hydrogen product Bright Green Hydrogen.
To reduce cost and gain efficiencies, he will build multiple “natural air capture plants” based on modularization. MacGregor told an audience at a recent U.S. Energy Association briefing that he has his eye on locations on the United States’ Gulf Coast and Canada’s East Coast and the prairie region.
MacGregor understands the urgency and the complexity of the energy and climate change conundrum. He will not waste time arguing or pontificating. Just like Boilermakers, he is focused on actually doing something that can make a real difference.
“A lot of people have opinions on (climate change solutions), but they don’t have the calculators to show if they work,” he has said. MacGregor has used his calculator and his past, proven experience. He has shown he’s done the math.
Ironically, when so-called “green” extremists rally support through either (unfounded yet sadly effective) fear tactics or pie-in-the-sky “solutions” in their winner-takes-all agenda, progress toward real solutions is delayed, valuable time is squandered and our planet and people suffer.
The time is ripe for real, common-sense solutions like Hydrogen Naturally’s Bright Green Hydrogen. We need more of this kind of innovative, science and reality-based action.
The Biden administration and today’s Department of Energy are to be commended for aggressively addressing the issue of energy and climate change mitigation. Through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act, carbon capture deployment in the United States is finally accelerating. And with billions of dollars earmarked for CCUS enhancements to the 45Q tax credit, for example, CCUS has become an attractive climate change solution option.
We need all solutions working together if we truly care about our future and want to save our planet, continue accessing reliable energy and preserve our socio-economic stability.
It’s high time to focus on solutions. It’s high time for the extremist rhetoric to stop, for common sense to prevail and for the actual work to begin. Our planet and our future depend on it.
To learn more about CCUS and to view short films on Hydrogen Naturally’s Bright Green Hydrogen project and about CCUS, visit www.CleanerFuture.org. To learn more about Hydrogen Naturally, visit www.h2naturally.com.
• Headquartered in Kansas City, Kansas, the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers, AFL-CIO represents North American workers engaged in field construction and maintenance, shipbuilding, cement making, railroads, manufacturing, mining and other industries.
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