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IBJ.com

 The measure declares that the transportation of CO2 by pipeline “is declared to be a public use and service, in the public interest, and a benefit to the welfare of Indiana,” citing its potential to reduce carbon emissions and to promote economic development.

“Granting eminent domain to a private entity is reason enough, we think, to oppose this bill,” said Kerwin Olson, program director for Indianapolis-based Citizens Action Coalition.

There is a growing chorus of opposition to CO2 pipelines premised upon giving the entities controlling the pipelines the authority to acquire by eminent domain.  

CO2 creates fear of danger to those who reside or work near the pipelines. That can be taken care of, at least in part, in the form of payment of just compensation.

However, the Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana is touching a very raw nerve in noting it is a private entity acquiring.  
    
The question regarding many of these CO2 pipelines will end up being whether there is some type of regulatory control over the entity in which the State benefits in the form of taxation or separation fees.  Further, the regulation must and should have some control over the extent that the pipeline developers can profit.

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Indiana Economic Digest

The measure declares that the transportation of CO2 by pipeline "is declared to be a public use and service, in the public interest, and a benefit to the welfare of Indiana," citing its potential to reduce carbon emissions and to promote economic development.

"Granting eminent domain to a private entity is reason enough, we think, to oppose this bill," said Kerwin Olson, program director for Indianapolis-based Citizens Action Coalition.

The group said the measure is to benefit Indiana Gasification, which in 2006 proposed building a $1.5 billion plant in Spencer County to convert high-sulfur coal to gas. Utilities could use the gas for heating and to generate electricity.

Indiana Gasification, which planned to sell gas to Merrillville-based NIPSCO and Evansville-based Vectren, shelved plans in late-2008 after failing to reach long-term gas supply contracts with utilities, which feared such contracts could impair their long-term credit.

The Indiana measure provides for a reasonable public use; protecting society from carbon emissions. However, the unregulated transfer of property, so that private profit-making companies can simply bring their pipelines through private property, raises severe constitutional questions.  It is unlikely that many states will allow private companies without government regulation to acquire land for the pipelines.

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Detroit News

The polluted water comes from a drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," in which millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals are blasted into each well to fracture tightly compacted shale and release trapped natural gas.

Fracking has been around for decades. But the drilling companies are now using it in conjunction with a new horizontal drilling technique they brought to Appalachia after it was proven in the 1990s to be effective on a shale formation beneath Texas.

Fracking a horizontal well costs more money and uses more water, but it produces more natural gas from shale than a traditional vertical well.

Fracking is utilized to expand gas production.  The problem with fracking is that it pushes water into the ground in order to break the shale and in turn release trapped natural gas.  If the same water is used to repeat the process, then the salt/brine product may not cause great harm.  However, excessive brine will create result in hostility to the fracking method.  What likely will happen is that the salty brine will be the new CO2, with every user attempting to dispose of the byproduct.

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