Carbon burial good ... unless it's in your town?

What possible reason could one have to object to burying vast amounts of carbon dioxide underground so the gas not longer contributes to worsening climate change?

Does your answer change if the proposed burial place is under your home?

That’s the situation facing Royal Dutch Shell and residents of the Dutch town of Barendrecht, Bloomberg reports today. Shell operates a gasification hydrogen plant near Barendrecth, and hopes to sequester the plant’s carbon emissions in two now-empty natural-gas fields below the town.

Not so fast, say the town’s residents. As one local put it, the resulting technology of the Manhattan Project — the atomic bomb — wasn’t tested in Manhattan.

The city council has so far agreed, expressing opposition to Shell’s plan. It expects to make a final decision by the end of June, but its vote can be overturned by national officials who are pushing for advances in carbon capture and sequestration.

According to Bloomberg, the Netherlands is supporting two prototype projects — including the one in Barendrecht — with an eye toward being able to eventually develop larger sequestration facilities that could store 30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030. It expects to spend some €750 million over the next three years on such initiatives.