\u201cWhen you look at the (Environmental Impact Report) under CEQA, all you\u2019re seeing is that there will be some capture equipment, there will be some pipelines, and there will be wells that will inject that carbon underground,\u201d Ghafar said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have no sense of the impacts of anything having to do with where the carbon actually will come from. Where is it coming from? What kind of facilities is that carbon coming from? How far are those facilities? How will it be transported from those other facilities to TerraVault?\u201d<\/p>\n
Asserting the potential for CO2 leakage, especially through thousands of aging wells that riddle the Elk Hills oil field, Ghafar warned that those old wells are among the most common pathways for carbon to escape from underground storage reservoirs \u2014 a risk she said the county largely dismissed by deferring responsibility to other agencies.<\/p>\n
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An oil field operates near Bakersfield in 2014. California Resources Corp. broke ground Thursday, Oct. 17, 2025, on what is set to be the state\u2019s first commercial carbon capture and storage project at the nearby Elk Hills oil field, even as environmental groups challenge Kern County\u2019s approval in court.<\/p>\n
Innovation vs. impact<\/p>\n
Permitted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in December<\/a> with construction already underway, Carbon TerraVault I is designed to capture and store up to 1.6 million metric tons of CO2 annually, which would be equivalent to removing nearly 400,000 cars from California\u2019s roads each year, according to company<\/a>. The captured CO2 would then be \u201csafely and permanently stored under continuous monitoring,\u201d said Chris Gould, managing director of the TerraVault project known as CTV.<\/p>\n \u201cSimply put, it will not be possible to eliminate all emissions across our economy, so achieving carbon neutrality will rely on carbon sequestration,\u201d he said during a news conference on Thursday, adding CTV was \u201cfulfilling the state\u2019s ambitious climate goal.\u201d<\/p>\n Gould also noted the site\u2019s strong cap rock makes it ideal for safely storing carbon, adding that the capture facility sits less than a mile from the injection wells to keep the project efficient and limit surface impacts.<\/p>\n \u201cCTV I will include a comprehensive environmental monitoring program with both shallow and deep monitoring wells. … CRC\u2019s program will also track air quality, vegetation health and seismic activity, with semiannual reports submitted to the EPA,\u201d the company said in an email.<\/p>\n