A petition to stop ExxonMobil’s Solent CO2 Pipeline Project coming to the Isle of Wight has gathered 1,923 signatures to date. Little Atherfield resident Christopher Davis’s plea on Change.org warns the project would leave a ‘massive scar’ across the Island. ExxonMobil is seeking permission to install an underground pipeline to transport captured C02 from its Fawley Manufacturing Complex, and possibly the wider Solent area. The American multinational oil and gas corporation says the CO2 would be taken to a deep rock formation in the English Channel for safe storage. After unveiling its plans on 18th July, the corporation is currently seeking views for its Pipeline Corridor Consultation which proposes three possible routes, 2 of which travel beneath the Isle of Wight. The Isle of Wight North to South corridor is 26km long and stretches south from Lepe under the Solent seabed. After passing to the west of Gurnard, it continues south to Little Atherfield. The 24km Isle of Wight North to West corridor follows the same route from Lepe under the Solent seabed before heading South West towards Dunsbury near Brook. Mr Davis’s petition claims the pipeline will devastate Isle of Wight National Landscape (the new name for the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty), Sites of Special Scientific Interest and natural habitats, including those of endangered red squirrels. Though it describes carbon capture as ‘laudable’, the project is said to be beyond a ‘price worth paying’. Both Richard Quigley, Labour MP for Isle of Wight West, and Councillor Nick Stuart, who represents Brighstone, Calbourne and Shalfleet for the Isle of Wight Council, have criticised the project. They have accused the plans of being an attempt at ‘greenwashing’ – a word used to describe an organisation’s efforts to convince the public of its environmentally friendly credentials. The pair also echoed Mr Davis’s fears over the project’s impact on the Island’s landscape. Exxonmobil have been approached for comment.
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yes put it across the island it’s underground so not going to see it plus be good for the run down metal detecting clubs on the island. VOTE YES TO PIPE LINE
Exonn Mobil want this because it is a cheaper option. The correct thing to do would be to build a procedding plant at Fawley which would remove the need for transportation and storage. However, processing the CO2 is more expensive than storing it so Mobil prefer to rape our landscape for a few more dollars profit.
Perhaps they could build a fixed link for us islanders, and put their pipe down that, two birds with one stone??
While they are coming under Solent,if they can incorporate it along with a road tunnel, then 100% would support!.
Do you really want to be in a tunnel filled with CO2 if the pipe carrying that were to develop a failure?
Carbon capture does not work. Seems this is a rare case where what ever your position on climate change is we all agree this project and carbon capture is a big fat no from islanders. Carbon capture projects are used to discredit the green policies, get free money from the government and to allow oil companies to keep burning oil. I have not met any green people like myself that supports carbon capture. It’s a con job.
On the solentco2pipeline website, it is explained that Corridor Element O “, which would take a route through the cliffs somewhere in the St.Catherine’s area, was not taken forward, due to the unstable ground conditions of the coast.”
Of the options they are pursuing on the Island, which seem to combine elements of corridor options G,N & M, their North to South and North to West corridors would both leave the Island in areas with unstable cliffs, where there have been recent landslips.
Their North to West option looks to cut through the cliff somewhere around the Brook/ Compton area, where the Military Road is already close to falling into the sea, and the North to South route looks to be gouging through the cliffs somewhere near Atherfield, which is another area notorious for rapid cliff erosion.
How can these routes not also have been ruled out similarly to option ‘O’?
https://www.solentco2pipeline.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Pipeline-corridor-elements-not-taken-forward.pdf
What other SH1T can we dump off this beautiful Island? Ammunition off St Catherine’s, Sewerage off Yaverland, Now this it’s just putting the dust under the carpet. Make Exon fix the problem properly. They would not get away with this in Scandinavia!
If ExxonMobil have paid off the right people (and if they can’t afford to, who can?) then this is a done deal.
The task now is to extract as much benefit for the Island as possible, and Exxon has deep pockets.
Typical of those in West Wight!
They are always the first to moan and complain about anything that affects the island in any way.
They probably aren’t true Islanders anyway.
First it was the wind power project in Wellow and now this. Come on stop complaining about everything that might benefit the island. If you really don’t like it there are fairly frequent ferries to the mainland
It would be a case of ‘the operation was a success but the patient died’.
Fawley produces a wide a range of petroleum products that are needed in everything from wind turbines to electric cars. Those products cannot be magically produced in some other way, carbon is the by-product. There is no way to ‘process’ this as some erroneously claim, only discharge it or store it. Currently it is discharged. Three routes for this pipeline have been proposed. Both the island routes are shorter, both involve less environmental damage and by definition are less likely to leak. Storing carbon under the English channel will seal it in for millions of years.The technology may exist soon to commercially turn carbon into a useful product. Until then, this is the only workable solution.