While we sneezed under the influence of a spring allergy, Keloland took a look at public comments to the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission about Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed CO2 pipeline. SCS would capture CO2 at cooperating ethanol plants, compress it and transport it through a system of pipelines to North Dakota.
For a Keloland original, Rae Yost reports in A look at public comments on proposed CO2 pipeline:
So far, it’s been mostly negative comments on one of the proposed carbon dioxide pipelines that have been shared with the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission.
S.D. PUC has received at least 30 public comments on the Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed CO2 pipeline that would travel through South Dakota from Iowa and other states to a C02 burial site in North Dakota.
About 469 miles of the pipeline would travel through South Dakota. It would also travel through parts of Minnesota, and most of Iowa. SCS would capture CO2 at cooperating ethanol plants, compress it and transport it through a pipeline.
The comments on the proposed project are posted on the PUC website.
Comments outline various concerns such as the safety of the material being transported as well as the possibility that a large corporation could take advantage of landowners. Some of those who commented were also concerned that SCS would use eminent domain to take the needed land for the route if a landowner did not sign an easement. . . .
Read the article at Keloland.
UPDATE: March 20
Chair of the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy Committee Rick Hansen, DFL-South St. Paul, tweeted a response to this post Saturday evening, a study that points out
— Rep. Rick Hansen (@reprickhansen) March 20, 2022
From the link:
Biofuels are included in many proposed strategies to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and limit the magnitude of global warming. The US Renewable Fuel Standard is the world’s largest existing biofuel program, yet despite its prominence, there has been limited empirical assessment of the program’s environmental outcomes. Even without considering likely international land use effects, we find that the production of corn-based ethanol in the United States has failed to meet the policy’s own greenhouse gas emissions targets and negatively affected water quality, the area of land used for conservation, and other ecosystem processes. Our findings suggest that profound advances in technology and policy are still needed to achieve the intended environmental benefits of biofuel production and use.
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the official journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), is an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans the biological, physical, and social sciences. The journal is global in scope and submission is open to all researchers worldwide.
On an entirely separate issue related to the SCS pipeline, Dakota Free Press's Cory Allan Heidelberger notes in Schoenbeck Threatens Iowa CO2 Pipeliners with Killer Legislation… But Route Already Moved:
I don’t recall Lee Schoenbeck complaining much about pipelines using eminent domain to run Canadian tar sands oil through farmers’ fields. But boy, aim a carbon dioxide pipeline through land belonging to some Catholic sisters, and Lake Kampeska’s best Senator is ready to raise holy heck . . .
Move your pipeline, Summit Carbon Solutions, or you “won’t like the legislation [you’ll] see next year.” Wow—I love it when Lee talks dirty.
The Benedictine Sisters who own Harmony Hill need not worry: Summit Carbon Solutions said it changed the route months ago. . .
Check out the details at Dakota Free Press.
We'll be back tomorrow with a fact check of a claim made this week in the Minnesota House Agriculture Committee. Analogies are hard.
Related posts:
- Strib: Ethanol's per-gallon carbon output shrinks, but greenhouse gas from plants remains high
- We agree: It's time to move on from ethanol
- Another IA newspaper editorial board questions ethanol industry, carbon capture pipelines
- Ethanol CCS pipeline update: Reuters & Agweek
- Not a lot of easements for Midwest carbon pipeline, but plenty of political connections
- 2 ethanol CO2 headlines that make us go hmmm
- CO2 pipelines: who wins & who loses?
- Coming soon from a cornfield near you: mammoth carbon capture pipeline system
- Mother Jones: USDA Secretary Vilsack’s son works for a controversial ethanol pipeline project
- Iowa county boards scorn construction of CO2 pipelines, use of eminent domain to build them
- Digest of news about carbon dioxide pipelines
Screengrab: The proposed Summit CO2 pipeline, which could capture CO2 from ethanol plants, such Granite Falls Energy LLC in Granite Falls, Minnesota, which would help reduce the ethanol plants' overall carbon footprint. West Central Tribune, via Summit CO2 project.
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