Embracing real clean energy

By Randi Pokladnik

Unlike our neighboring states of Michigan and Illinois, Ohio’s politicians have not embraced the economic and environmental benefits that solar and wind energy provide. Instead, Ohio’s politicians passed Senate Bill 52, where communities can effectively block solar and wind projects; something that communities cannot do when it comes to fossil fuel development. Ohio’s energy bill HB 15, which passed in May, was stripped of several pro-solar provisions, including a community solar program.

This program would have helped poor communities access solar energy. During the past nine months, the Trump administration has mounted a blatant attack on renewable energy by rolling back environmental laws and policies favoring renewables, canceling incentives enacted in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and halting projects even when in construction.

Just when you think you’ve heard it all, Ohio’s Republican politicians have, yet again, come up with another way to kill renewable energy projects, solar and wind and promote the non-renewable fossil fuel gas: Methane. SB 294 would grant clean energy status to methane gas.

This could mean gas projects might get preferential treatment over true renewable energy projects when it comes to permits granted by the Ohio Power Siting Board.

Unlike solar and wind energy, methane is a climate changing gas itself, and when burned, produces carbon dioxide, another climate changing gas. Sen. George Lang, one of the Republican co-sponsors, said in committee that natural gas is a cleaner energy source than coal.

That’s not saying much. Sen. Mark Romanchuk, a Richland County Republican and co-sponsor, remarked that building the infrastructure needed for solar and wind produced emissions, but he conveniently failed to mention the emissions created to construct a well pad and all the infrastructure needed to support the process, along with the resulting carbon dioxide emissions from combustion.

According to a report by the World Nuclear Association, comparison of life-cycle CO2 emissions from all energy sources shows that fracked gas produces the third highest amount of CO2, with 490 grams of CO2 per kW hour. Utility scale solar produces 48 grams, residential solar produces 41 and wind (offshore and land) are the lowest life-cycle emitters, at 11 grams per kW hr. The life-cycle emissions from fracked gas include those produced from the extraction process, which includes the gas (drilling), well pad and road construction, petrochemicals used to frack, compression and transportation of gas to LNG facilities and export transportation out of the country.

Additionally, the fracking process requires enormous amounts of water and produces millions of gallons of toxic radioactive brine. Harrison County saw 853 million gallons of surface water withdrawn for fracking in 2023. That represents 78 percent of the total water usage in the county. Wind and solar energy have a significantly lower carbon and water footprint. Calling fracked gas “clean” is laughable.

At the same time Ohio politicians are wanting to declare fracked gas clean, they are working on legislation (HB 170 and SB 136) to give the Ohio Department of Natural Resources primacy over carbon dioxide capture and sequestration Class VI wells. If passed, millions of tons of carbon emissions, including those from combusting that so-called clean methane gas, will be injected underneath Ohio land. Taxpayers will be paying the tax incentives of $85 per ton of industrial CO2 captured and stored, according to the One Big Beautiful Bill passed this summer.

Both HB 170 and SB 136 tramp on private property rights by allowing forced pooling, which means that land owners could be forced into allowing the injection of carbon dioxide, a dangerous asphyxiant, under their private property. Texas landowners are finding that sequestering CO2 in the pore space of geologic formations poses an interesting legal issue regarding pore space ownership. This issue is consequential because the plume from CO2 storage operations can travel miles from the injection site through the pore spaces.

The next assault on property owners may be the construction of pipelines to carry carbon dioxide across the state from industrial facilities to the injection wells; planned for Carroll, Jefferson, and Harrison counties. (see Herald-Star, Oct. 22.) Midwestern states have already seen significant pushbacks from land owners who are being forced to allow pipelines to cross their farms and communities through the use of eminent domain. Iowa residents have been fighting Summit Carbon Solutions’ pipeline for several years. In addition, Summit Carbon Solutions planned route through South Dakota to North Dakota has been blocked, as the company was banned from using eminent domain to take property. Will Ohio’s citizens be dealing with this legal battle as Ohio politicians invite the CCS industry into the state?

Recently, S. 2975, the federal Pipeline Safety Act of 2025, passed by voice vote. It is a bipartisan effort to reauthorize the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s safety programs until 2030. This law would set regulations for carbon dioxide pipelines. Environmental groups worry that the industry has had too much influence on these regs and point out the deficiencies that could lead to another accident like the one that occurred in 2020 in Satartia, Miss., where 45 people were overcome by CO2 leaking from a ruptured pipeline.

These concerns included: Lack of odorization of CO2 so releases are detectable by smell; performance-based leak detection and rupture mitigation; contaminant controls to help prevent CO2 related corrosion; and prevention of the conversion of oil or gas pipelines to CO2 pipelines.

Taxpayers will foot the bills for the environmental, economic and health costs from Ohio’s refusal to embrace the real clean, green renewable energy sources: Solar and wind. The U.S. Energy Association has said, “Wind and solar power are two of the fastest-growing energy sectors in the U.S. and produced as much as 17 percent of the country’s electricity last year.” Yet, Ohio politicians continue to push dirty fracked gas down our throats. They are either willfully ignorant or out of touch with reality.

Randi Pokladnik, a resident of Uhrichsville who holds a Ph.D. in environmental studies, is a board member of the Ohio Valley Environmental Advocates.

This column was originally printed in the Herald-Star on November 28, 2025.