Does a CO2 pipeline leak in Mississippi hold lessons for Canada?

In the early evening of Feb. 22, 2020, DeBrae Burns was driving with his brother and cousin along Highway 3 outside the town of Satartia, Miss., when they saw a nearby explosion.

"We were coming back from a fishing trip, and we actually saw the mushroom cloud. Just like an explosion, but without the fire. It was just a big cloud of white in the air," he said.

He suspected  it came from a nearby pipeline that runs through the hills above Satartia. What he didn't know was that instead of oil or natural gas, compressed and liquefied carbon dioxide was running through the pipes. 

The surrounding area was immediately flooded with the suffocating gas, which can be deadly in concentrated amounts because it displaces oxygen. Burns called his mother on the phone about the explosion. Seconds later, the car's engine was snuffed out; Burns, his brother and cousin all passed out.

"My phone was still on. She was calling my name: DeBrae, DeBrae, DeBrae. And I just stopped talking."

Nobody died in the aftermath of that pipeline explosion in Mississippi, but first responders and residents say they should have known more about the risks to better prepare themselves for possible emergencies.

With major Canadian energy companies advocating for building a CO2 pipeline in Alberta, CBC went to Satartia to learn first-hand about the possible risks when a CO2 pipeline runs through a community. 

Carbon dioxide can be transported through a pipeline for multiple reasons. In the case of the pipeline in Mississippi, it's for a process called enhanced oil recovery, where pumping CO2 into oil wells can help extract more oil.

In Canada, a consortium of the country's largest energy companies called the Pathways Alliance is proposing a massive carbon dioxide pipeline that it says would reduce emissions from oilsands production in Alberta.

It would capture carbon dioxide emissions from more than 20 oilsands facilities in northern Alberta and transport them 400 kilometres away by pipeline to be stored in a naturally occurring underground reservoir in the Cold Lake area. The CO2 would then be kept underground, with the goal of preventing the emissions from entering the atmosphere.

The alliance first proposed the project in 2022, but have not yet finalized agreements with federal and provincial governments about incentives and how it would be paid for. 

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is considered part of the solution to reach net-zero emissions globally, according to the International Energy Agency, and is a key part of the oilsands companies' plans to cut emissions by a third from 2019 levels by 2030. 

Critics, however, have likened CCS to a red herring in the climate fight.

A New York Times opinion column from 2022 called "every dollar" spent on CCS "a waste" as it enables continued gas and oil production by "masquerading as climate change solutions," instead of transitioning to cleaner energy sources.