Isle of Wight Councillor Nick Stuart is urging Islanders to join him in opposing plans to route a waste CO2 pipeline across the Island. Councillor Stuart represents the Brighstone, Calbourne and Shalfleet area that stretches from the north to the south coast of the Island and is earmarked as one leg of the proposed cross-Island route for the pipeline. Plans have been put forward by American oil giant, Exxon Mobil, which operates the Fawley Oil Refinery, as previously reported by Island Echo. Councillor Nick Stuart says:
“Exxon Mobil’s preferred route has implications for about 40 square kilometres – about 10 per cent – of the Island’s total surface area. That’s the size of the Island’s largest towns combined! “If it goes ahead the pipeline would cause three years of major construction, damaging the island’s seabed ecologies, national landscapes, heritage coast, ancient woodlands, and various protected nature sites – including those designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Ramsar sites, and Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC). This is particularly concerning given the Isle of Wight’s UNESCO Biosphere designation. “Despite a glossy public ‘consultation’ process, Exxon Mobil is not offering residents a real choice, only a say in which of the company’s predetermined pipeline routes they prefer. “This appears to be a greenwashing attempt by a massive fossil fuel company to avoid dealing with the shift from oil to renewable energy. It is disappointing – some might call it cynical – that the pipeline consultation is timed to avoid scrutiny between council meetings and over the summer. “The Isle of Wight Council has no planning authority over the scheme as it is deemed a national infrastructure project, which only requires the approval of the Secretary of State. “I urge all residents to join me in persuading the council to object to this dreadful project and asking the Secretary of State to reject it in the strongest possible terms.”
I hope they build it through Quigley’s garden. Labour wanted economic growth, we won’t tolerate Nimbys they declared. Well, now is your chance to prove it.
Good post.
Or, just hear me out, we could close the oil refinery.
Fawley provides 20 per cent of the UK’s refinery capacity. Over 2,500 people are employed at the site
it has a one-mile-long marine terminal, which handles around 2,000 ship movements and 22 million tonnes of crude oil and other products every year.
it is now the largest oil refinery in the United Kingdom, and one of the most complex refineries in Europe. With a capacity of 270,000 barrels per day, that plant produces propane and butane (LPG), petrol, jet fuel, diesel, marine fuels, heating oil, lubricant basestocks and fuel oil
you would kill off the UK populations ability to function if you shut that refinery down permanently
and then what joan – go back to horse and cart, with open fires to heat and cook
I’m with you, Joan. Electric vehicles are coming in, they are wonderful. (we still have an ICE car but more expensive fuel would incentivise us all to change). However I don’t think that will happen fast enough.
Typical of that side of the island, moan, moan, moan, put up and shut up if it’s got to be done, it will be underground, so therefore over time anything that has been dug up will come back, unlike a grotty estate which will destroy nature for good.
The clue is in the name – “ancient” woodlands. Those things will take centuries to return to their original condition.
Some wildlife habitats, once destroyed, may never recover.
exxon have drilled underground, in water depths of hundreds of metres before – if they need to horizontal drill under the woodland at a depth that won’t affect it, they will. They can of course go around it.
exxon raked in £14 billion in revenue, in the six months to end of june 2024.
For perspective, the isle of wight council expects to spend about £400 million on the islanders/island across the whole year – that means that six months of revenue at exxon would keep the island funded for at least 30 years.
the isle of wight council will be well paid for this pipeline and so will any landowners – it will happen if they can get it, regardless of what a few nimbys say.
Thank goodness for people who keep us informed about what’s happening in their area – Nimbies. This awful project shouldn’t be happening in ANYONE’S back yard.
Note, how the NIMBY councillor is referring to it as a waste pipe and how it will affect 10% of the island surface area, whereas exxon state..
“The Solent CO₂ Pipeline Project is seeking permission to install an underground pipeline to transport CO₂ to a safe, secure and permanent storage location in the English Channel.”
it is of course a CO2 capture scheme, which will ensure that the equivalent of 5 million cars worth of CO2 is captured and stored back in the ground again each year, instead of being released into the air.
it is underground and not on the surface and not a waste pipe, which coujours up images of a sewage pipe across the land.
Fine with house builds in the east wight though, aren’t you, councillor.
once the pipeline has been laid underground, you won’t even know it is there – exxon and companies like them, have been involved in pipeline design and implementation for decades.
councillor stuart worrying about the effects on the land is one thing, however, he is somewhat silent on the effects of the unfettered housebuilding, road building, importation of people and subsequent loss of nature though.
exxon’s pipeline wont affect anything long term and you won’t see it, however, hundreds of new houses, with their associated roads, sewage pipes, water pipes, power cables and drainage systems, will decimate the countryside – how about you complain about the biosphere status with regards to house building then councillor
More worried because no backhanders are available is my guess
Just plant trees…best carbon converters…climate change is a hoax…
You are joking 🙂 🙂 🙂 just look at world news, whole areas of the planet becoming uninhabitable, harvests failing…
And still they burn down the tropical rain forests. You know, those carbon capture trees. We are ALL suffering from their destruction, but, do we try and protect them?
If the proposed routes across the Island are chosen what revenue stream will benefit the Island. What compensation will land owners receive.
One can safely assume nothing.
The Island will be seen as a soft option as the New Forest route contains too many wealthy, influential people with friends in high places.
If we rely on our now fragmented political set up nothing will be achieved and our council will be powerless (as usual) as the project is deemed ‘of national importance’
Exxon will pay lip service to the opinions of the public to appear righteous and then do whatever they want regardless.
Build a Bridge or Tunnel across the solent so we can all use it.
As long as it is permanently filled with CO2…
Will be if it’s a car tunnel
I thought Mr Stuart was also councillor for Porchfield. No mention of the fact that the pipeline may be going alongside Whitehouse Road in the ‘North – South’ plan. No mention in the plan of the width or depth of the trench or the pipe. No indication of how long it would take. The ‘Route’ is 50mtr wide, and the easement, after it is done, is a 25mtr wide ‘Protected Path.’ I wonder what the effect of forcing gas into rock would have on the already fragile south. There are 5 ‘exhibitions’ planned between now and 5th September to promote this. I hope we can get answers at these events.
It seems a great upheaval. But the CO2 climate crisis is upon us. The island will recover from the pipeline disruption. At the rate we are going, it won’t recover from climate change which is affecting us all. Possibly only people who don’t use fossil fuels are entitled to object? We still have an ICE car.
Stop whining ..CO2 makes up 0.04% of the air and is about 440 parts per million – back in the days of the dinsosaurs it reached 6000 parts per million, they thrived, so did all the other creatures and so did all the plant life. None of them were driving 4 x 4’s
you will of course be aware that if CO2 in the air drops too low, all the plants die off, as they soak up CO2 and expel oxygen, that we breathe in.
without CO2 plants die, without plants we die.
Okay, how do we object though? That would be helpful info
There is a totally underwater option that will leave the island and the New Forest alone. My guess is thats the most expensive, so EM don’t favour it.
The totally underwater option should of course be the ONLY solution. Our new government should step up and insist on it, show us all they are willing to help and serve the ordinary citizens of the UK, as they have promised.
Would it perhaps be simpler not to produce an enormous quantity of Carbon Dioxide at Fawley? Problem solved.
So if they are going to build a tunnel, get them to cough up towards a bigger tunnel then we won’t be held to ransom at the whim of ferry companies and their staff!
After all, they want to do it so why not give them the ultimatum?
Whenever the fixed link crops up the usual moaners come out but how many of them know that but for WW1 we would already have a rail link? The Victorians were forward thinking with infrastructure…we can only look backwards. Just think, the sensitive Isle of Skye of all places in Scotland has a bridge to it..the bonny boat sprung a leak years ago.
The way we are going, we could all be physically stuck without any link in the not too distant future.
the Victorians were far greater engineers than the numpties today with their pseudo degrees so when they decided a tunnel was not a viable option and abandoned it, I would listen to history.
Not so Gota, it was abandoned to due costs after WW1 when the country was financially on it’s knees. Think about the great depression.
Subsequently, when money started to come back, the build up to ww2 came along and that finished it.
The railway was supposed to head north from Yarmouth to Lymington, that is what the railway was built for. It eventually got a leg south to Freshwater.
It is all out there in the records.
Why not lay the pipeline along the seabed to the mainland?
That is one of the options, from Fawley, around the island, and out to their ‘dumping ground’
Sounds like Exon don’t relish the cost of that even tho it makes far more sense.
‘Preferred Route’. That clearly means cheapest route. No consderation for the upheaval and the damage , just the cheapest.
No thanks EM. Not in a million years .
It is “greenwashing”, pure and simple
Greenwashing is the process of conveying a false impression or misleading information about how a company’s products are environmentally sound. Greenwashing involves making an unsubstantiated claim to deceive consumers into believing that a company’s products are environmentally friendly or have a greater positive environmental impact than they actually do.
Thanks for mansplaining it. You are just so intelligent, no other person reading your reply could possibly know what ‘Greenwashing’ could mean. BTW, mansplaining is when you take a simple idea and wring it out so us lesser beings can understand your greatness. How can we fight back against these evil companies oh Great One, please, bestow us with your enlightened ways. See you Tuesday after this next one.
It would be possible, I understand, to process the CO2 and a plant to do so could be build in or close to Fawley. This would, of course, cost more which is why it is not Exxon’s preferred option. But that must surely be the way forward. Clearly, we will not be able to switch off fossil fuels overnight but we can process the by-products so that they do not poison the planet. It just needs investment. Exxon must be encouraged to make thaht investment.
CO2 only exists in three places naturally – in the air, in the sea and in the ground – putting it back in the ground via a pipeline is a far better option
With the pipe-laying technology/barges developed in the offshore oil and gas industry they could happily go round the island to get from Fawley to the disposal site without touching the island. I’m out of date with cost comparisons but I believe it may actually be quicker and certainly less disruptive. EM will have costed this and should be forced under a freedom of information request to declare their hand.
offshore pipelines are around £2million a kilometre to actually get into place as an all in cost and if you need to drill into the seabed, then a jack up rig may be anywhere from £100k to £250k a day rental.
Fawley must become net 0, or presumably, close. We clearly have to stop wrecking the planet. We do need more sustainable energy, we are heading in the right direction. I would love to see wind turbines from my window, they are majestic things and, I believe, the cheapest form of energy production. And they are built just across the river.
We clearly have to stop wrecking the planet.
laughable at best.
uk is responsible for 1% of global emissions.
china is responsble for 27% of global emissions and are bringing online a new coal power plant each week.
the uk efforts are like trying to stop someone having a small bonfire, next to an erupting volcano, because of the bonfire emissions.
please remember THE ISLE OF WIGHT IS A SMALL PLAVE OF OUTSTANDING BEAUTY and we have plenty of are ow problems with out have the pipeline eg THE ROAD AND THE MOUNT OF HEAVY TRAFIC THAT WOULD COME WITH THE SITES FOR THE PIPE LINE