An August article in the West Central Tribune, Company proposes carbon capture project that would include Granite Falls Energy, other Minnesota ethanol plants, piqued our attention, as carbon capture continues to be touted as the salvation of the coal industry, though we knew those rascals in ethanol production were talking about it among themselves as well.
We intended to look deeper into this, and so were happy this morning to see that the Tribune's Tom Cherveny and Reuters had more on the issue in Willmar's paper Wednesday.
In West central Minnesota counties are along proposed path of $4.5B carbon capture pipeline, Cherveny reported:
Chippewa, Redwood, Renville and Yellow Medicine counties are among those that may be affected by a proposed Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline project.
Summit Carbon Solutions, based in Ames, Iowa, wants to build a 2,000-mile pipeline to link dozens of ethanol plants in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota.
Company representatives had met earlier this year with county commissioners in Chippewa and Yellow Medicine counties to describe plans to connect the Granite Falls Energy plant to the proposed pipeline.
They had also discussed the possibility of conducting field evaluation activities on Renville County-owned land in Hawk Creek Township with the Renville County Board of Commissioners.
During a presentation to the Yellow Medicine County Board of Commissioners on Aug. 24, company representatives said they would also hold meetings with the tribal governments for the Upper Sioux and Lower Sioux communities. . . .
The line to the Granite Falls Energy plant would run through parts of Redwood, Chippewa and Yellow Medicine counties. The Yellow Medicine County portion would run an estimated 15.6 miles and cross under the Minnesota River. The six-inch diameter pipeline would be placed a minimum of 25 feet under the river using horizontal directional drilling technology for a distance of about 800 feet.
Company officials told the Yellow Medicine County Board of Commissioners that Minnesota has no regulations specific to carbon dioxide pipelines. They asked the county to develop a permit process.
Environmental groups in the state have an online petition asking the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board to require that the company prepare an environmental assessment worksheet for the project. . . .
Go read the petition at the link to learn of the environmental concerns about project.
As of now, the EQB Monitor for November 23, 2021 notes that petition is on hold:
Proposed Midwest Carbon Express Project
Location: Central and Southwest Minnesota
Process: Citizen Petition
Step: Petition on Hold
Notice Description: On November 22, 2021 EQB received notice from the Public Utilities Commission (the designated RGU) that no permit applications had been submitted for this project. Per the requirements in Minn. R. 4410.1100 Subp. 9, the petition will remain in effect for one year from the date on which it was filed with the EQB (November 9, 2021). During that time, a prohibition on final governmental decisions (Minn. R. 4410.3100) remains in effect for any proposed project for which the nature and location is substantially similar to the project identified in the petition. RGU and Contact: Public Utilities Commission, Bret Eknes, 651-201-223
The petition was listed in the November 16 EQB monitor.
Some of the issues raised by the petition resemble concerns raised in Iowa in October. Iowa Public Radio reported in Proposed carbon dioxide pipeline draws opposition from Iowa farmers and environmentalists alike:
The plan to build a carbon dioxide pipeline marketed as “the world’s largest” is drawing opposition from Iowa farmers and environmentalists alike. At a virtual public meeting Tuesday, speakers railed against the proposal by Summit Carbon Solutions to build a sprawling 2,000 mile long pipeline, more than 700 miles of which would pass through 30 of Iowa’s 99 counties.
Many of the pipelines that have carved their way across the Midwest carry carbon from deep underground to be burned in order to power homes, cars and factories. The pipeline that Summit Carbon Solutions hopes to build across Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota would do the opposite: capturing carbon dioxide at ethanol and fertilizer plants, liquefying the gas and piping it to North Dakota, where it would be stored thousands of feet underground.
The technology is known as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), an approach which some environmentalists see as a worthy tool and others dismiss as a costly lifeboat for fossil fuel companies. . . .
Landowners and members of the public raised a slate of concerns on Tuesday, including questions about how the pipeline, buried 48 inches below ground, might affect their property values, the productivity of their land, and whether they would shoulder any liability if the pipe leaked or burst.
“[If] an explosion occurs, since this is a hazardous material,” asked Robert Ritter of Wright County, “who is liable for damage or death in an accident on my land?”
Some said the company seemed to be downplaying the potential risks associated with pressurized carbon dioxide, which has long been used to euthanize animals.
Summit representatives deflected questions about a leak at a carbon pipeline in Mississippi in 2020, which sickened dozens of people, saying the proposed Midwest project would only pipe “pure” carbon dioxide, unlike the Mississippi pipeline, which also included hydrogen sulfide. . . .
Residents and landowners repeatedly questioned if the company would use any of the carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), a process of injecting the substance in oil fields to boost oil production.
Representatives for the company denied this, despite statements from the company’s CEO Bruce Rastetter that the project wouldn’t be possible without it, according to reporting by the Associated Press. . . .
The Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club is gathering signatures for a petition opposing the Summit project and another pipeline proposed by Navigator CO2 Ventures. The activist group is blasting the approach of CCS as a “false solution” to climate change.
The organization, like other progressive-leaning climate advocates, sees CCS as extending a lifeline to carbon-based industries, at a time when the world needs to be ending its dependence on fossil fuels in order to stave off the worst impacts of climate change.
“These pipelines continue business as usual, will only be feasible with massive public subsidies, and should not be approved,” the petition reads. “We already know the solutions to our climate crisis - we must end our dependence on fossil fuels and invest in solar, wind, battery storage, conservation and efficiency!” . .
It's not simply progressive-leaning organizations raising objections. Witness social conservative LifeSite's reportage on Wednesday: Americans’ property rights up in the air if ‘carbon capture’ pipeline is approved.
In a Reuters article published at the West Central Tribune, Leah Douglas reports in Giant pipeline in Midwest tests future of carbon capture:
Dan Tronchetti received a letter in August that alarmed him: Summit Carbon Solutions, a company he'd never heard of, wanted his permission to conduct survey work for a 2,000-mile pipeline it planned to route through his Iowa corn and soybean fields.
The project, dubbed the Midwest Carbon Express, had ambitions to become the world's largest carbon dioxide pipeline, moving climate-warming greenhouse gases from Midwest biofuels plants to North Dakota for permanent storage underground.
But Tronchetti's first concern was for his livelihood. "It would go more than half a mile through prime farmland," he said.
The 65-year-old is among dozens of landowners along the route who are refusing to cede their property to the project, according to Reuters interviews with five landowners, four community groups organizing opposition, several academics and industry sources plus a review of filings with state regulators.
The impasse could escalate into potential court battles if Summit tries to seize the land by claiming eminent domain. Such legal fights contributed to the cancellation of the Keystone XL oil pipeline this year.
The outcome of the dispute poses huge stakes for Summit's $4.5 billion project, and for the Midwest ethanol producers it would serve who are hoping to wipe away their carbon footprints and burnish their green credentials.
It also represents what could be the biggest test yet for the carbon capture and storage industry, which has struggled for years but which advocates say could become a powerful tool in the global fight against climate change.
Underground geological formations in the United States have the potential to store 2.6 trillion tons of planet-warming CO2, enough to cover all of America's historical emissions and those to come for centuries, according to the Department of Energy.
But there are open questions about whether carbon capture and storage can ever fill them. Despite billions of dollars of public investment over the past decade, the technology remains relatively untested.
The United States boasts just 12 operational commercial carbon capture and storage facilities that together have an annual capacity to store away 19.64 million tons of carbon, about 0.4% of national emissions.
Many other projects have been proposed but have either failed to reach startup or have been suspended because of financial or operational issues, including the $1 billion Petra Nova plant in Texas last year. . . .
. . .The Biden administration is also encouraging the technology in its bid to decarbonize the U.S. economy by 2050, and has proposed a big hike in tax credits for its use that is now being debated in Congress. Summit would be a big beneficiary.
. . .The farmers in the path of the pipeline are mainly concerned about damage to their crops during and after installation of the line, when soil will be disturbed and compacted.
Research published by Iowa State University this month found that first- and second-year yields in the right of way of the nearby Dakota Access crude oil pipeline were 25% lower for soybeans and 15% lower for corn.
Summit said in a filing with Iowa regulators that it plans to compensate farmers for potential damage by paying them the full value of the crops typically grown on the affected tract in the first year of construction and operation, with diminishing payments over the following two years.
Landowners fear that if they refuse to sign voluntary agreements for Summit to use their land for the pipeline, they could take it under eminent domain laws, as has happened with some oil and gas pipeline projects.
Despite that risk, Tronchetti and Bev Kutz, a Nebraska cattle farmer in the path of the pipeline, told Reuters that they and their neighbors had refused to let Summit surveyors onto their property.
"This is a private company seeking something that isn't in the best interest of the public," Kutz said.
The project also faces opposition from some local green groups, like the Iowa chapters of the Sierra Club and Food & Water Watch, who have expressed safety fears and concerns that the project will be used for enhanced oil recovery.
Most existing carbon capture and storage projects employ enhanced oil recovery, where the captured carbon is used to raise pressure in oil fields to boost crude production, something that climate activists say undermines the technology's green goals.
Summit said it hadn't ruled out enhanced oil recovery, but that its main focus was permanent storage. . . .
Summit's financial model relies on federal subsidies for carbon capture and storage, as well as the proceeds from low carbon fuel credits generated by biofuels from the plants it serves.
The Biden administration’s federal budget reconciliation bill would, if passed, hike tax credits for carbon sequestration from $50 per ton of carbon to $85 per ton.
Summit has estimated the pipeline will eventually carry 12 million tons of CO2 each year from ethanol facilities, enough to generate $1 billion annually in tax credits at the higher rate.
The fuel from the plants could then be sold into states like California or Washington which have or are developing low carbon fuel markets, generating lucrative tradable credits.
All of this money could become an important revenue stream for the ethanol sector, which has plateaued in recent years.
But the pipeline’s support for the ethanol industry falls flat with some environmentalists, who criticize the business for shifting millions of acres of pastureland, idle croplands, and forests into corn crop production.
“We’re wedding two highly polluting forms of energy in this macabre dance," Mitch Jones, policy director of Food & Water Watch, said of ethanol and crude oil obtained through enhanced oil recovery.
Lovely.
Given the power of the Governors Biofuels Coalition in these parts, the fight against this federally subsidized risky business has a tough row to hoe. We'll be looking more at this issue.
Related posts:
- Carbon capture in the news & an early March forum
- Reuters: Before being mothballed, problems plagued Petra Nova carbon capture project
- Project Tundra's clean coal; or, does Petra Nova project's tech really reduce carbon emissions?
- Cost of coal: Great River Energy to close Coal Creek power plant, wind power's gain.
Photo: The Granite Falls Energy ethanol plant is shown in this file photo.Tom Cherveny / West Central Tribune file photo
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