Editor, News-Register:

In a recent opinion piece, Charles McConnell asserted that Ohio should lead in the deployment of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology because, in addition to reducing carbon emissions, it means “investment in the billions and jobs in the millions”.

For 15 years, Ohio Valley residents have heard similarly grandiose claims made on behalf of the natural gas industry. But we discovered how hollow the claims were.

Billions of dollars were ostensibly invested in eight natural gas-producing counties in eastern Ohio, but what residents got was:

∫ The number of jobs plunged by 10,863 (-11%).

∫ The counties’ population declined by nearly 28,000 people (-8%).

∫ The combined incomes of people who live in the eight counties grew by only two-thirds the amount of income growth nationally.

But, isn’t it possible CCS will do better?

No, that’s because, like the natural gas industry, CCS is spectacularly capital-intensive and not at all labor-intensive.

In other words, it employs almost no one, while the income it generates goes almost entirely to shareholders and suppliers from outside the region.

Even Tenaska, the company that McConnell cited, confirmed as much with its own economic impact study of the project proposed for the valley.

That study, conducted by West Virginia University, found that, after construction, Tenaska’s project, which encompasses counties in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, will directly employ a total of four (4) people, two of whom will be in Ohio.

That’s right, two jobs.

Even if you include imagined economic ripple effects, Tenaska’s report finds that the total rises to just nine.

Finally and importantly, Mr. McConnell omits the fact that Tenaska’s investment will be subsidized, probably in its entirety, by your tax dollars.

CCS and the Tenaska project are a sad case of uneconomic corporate welfare that won’t add significantly to jobs or well-being in the valley and which may do considerable harm.

Sean O’Leary

Wheeling native

Johnstown, Pa.