Another one of our periodic digests of news about proposed pipelines to convey CO2 drawn from ethanol production. We'll start with a profile of the resistance published Thursday in the Guardian by Jennie Splitter, The bitter fight to stop a 2,000-mile carbon pipeline:
In August 2021, Sherri Webb found a letter in her mailbox about a new pipeline project. It would be a climate solution, the letter from Summit Carbon Solutions read, capturing planet-warming carbon dioxide and pumping it out of the state to be stored deep underground.
The letter included an aerial map of Webb’s property and a word that immediately alarmed her: “easement”. To install the pipeline, planned to run underneath close to 2,000 miles of Iowa land, Summit wanted permission to dig underneath her farm, an 80-acre property near Shelby that has been in Webb’s family for over 100 years.
“Anytime somebody is threatening your land, the feathers just kind of go up in the back of your neck,” she says.
There are three CO2 pipeline projects in early stages of planning in Iowa. The companies behind them – Summit, Navigator and a partnership of Wolf Carbon Solutions and Archer Daniel Midlands – have been contacting landowners in hopes of getting them to grant easements.
But hundreds of people say they won’t sign. Not only that, they don’t want to see these projects go forward at all. Webb and other landowners from different Iowa counties, some who farm and some who rent to other farmers, have joined forces in an unusual alliance with Indigenous groups and environmental organizations, to fight against the pipelines.
Iowa residents have been here before with the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL), a $3.8bn pipeline project completed in 2017. But where that pipeline was built to transport crude oil pumped from shale oil fields in north-west North Dakota through Iowa to Illinois, this new project is being proposed in the name of climate action.
Carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) works by capturing carbon dioxide emissions at their source to prevent their release into the atmosphere, then injecting the CO2 into rocks deep underground.
It has become a much-hyped answer to the need to rapidly reduce global carbon emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest working group report identifies seven pathways for limiting global warming – all but one include CCS. The Biden administration has pledged $2.3bn in funding to enhance capacity for existing US-based projects, each of which would be able to store at least 50m metric tons of captured CO2.
But critics are concerned that CCS is being treated as an easy fix for the climate crisis, especially by polluters who may rely on the technology to avoid strict emissions reductions. In some instances, captured carbon is used for enhanced oil recovery – a technique that uses liquefied CO2 to flush out residual oil – which serves to entrench fossil fuel production rather than replace it. . . .
Read the rest at the Guardian.
For more news on indigenous communities' concerns, the Sioux City Journal June 22 report, Winnebago Tribe pushing for CO2 pipeline environmental impact study.
Writing for the Food and Environment Reporting Network, Nancy Averett reported on Independence Day in The great carbon-capture debate:
One farmer dogged pipeline surveyors as they traversed his southwestern Iowa fields, peppering them with unwelcome questions about their proposed project. Another cornered Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds at a fundraising event. A third painted “No Carbon Pipeline” on a semi-trailer and parked it at the intersection of two county roads. These and other activists – an unlikely mix of Bernie Bros, Fox News devotees, Women’s March veterans, and at least one Q-Anon follower – meet weekly on Zoom to plot strategy, write letters to the editor, and leave angry voicemails with state legislators.
In a state that ranks number one in corn production, with 57 percent of that crop going to ethanol, rocking the agricultural boat has been, historically, rare. But that era appears to be over. As Jess Mazour, conservation coordinator for the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club, puts it, these protests are “the biggest thing to happen to Iowa in a long time.”
At issue are proposals to build three separate pipelines across the state. Each would transport liquified carbon dioxide — collected from the smokestacks of ethanol refineries — to North Dakota and Illinois, where the carbon would be pumped underground and stored indefinitely. The pipeline companies, whose backers include the grain merchant ADM, farm equipment company John Deere, and the oil company Valero — plus the agribusiness millionaire and Iowa Republican king-maker Bruce Ratstetter — claim that carbon capture and sequestration (known as CCS) will help fight climate change by annually removing 30 million tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide across the five-state region where the pipelines will run. That’s the equivalent of taking about 6 million gasoline-powered cars off the road for one year. It will also help Iowa’s corn farmers, they say, by lowering ethanol’s carbon footprint and making the product eligible for California’s low-carbon fuel standard, which was designed to decrease the carbon intensity of that state’s transportation sector and improve its air quality.
But for many Iowans, these “win-win” claims ring hollow. A coalition of about 1,000 people organized by the Sierra Club — about 200 of them meet online weekly — is suspicious of the companies’ motives and concerned about the potential for pipeline leaks, which could send asphyxiating plumes into the air. Farmers fret that burying the pipelines under 50-foot-wide swathes of farmland will compact soil and result in less productive acreage — as happened on land now hosting the Dakota Access Pipeline.
And almost everyone is furious at the prospect of the pipeline companies, should they fail to procure all the land easements needed, petitioning the state to invoke eminent domain. “I sure as hell am not going to sign any easement,” says Tom Honeyman, a farmer in southwestern Iowa. “I’ll go to prison before that happens.”
Beyond the anger and the fear, however, a central question looms: Are the proposed ethanol carbon storage pipelines — which cumulatively run more than 3,300 miles — a sensible tool for decarbonization, or will they just enrich their investors? Finding the answer is crucial because the planet’s temperature is rising, and government incentives for ethanol pipelines are time limited. Without them, pipeline developers will drop out. . . .
Check out the rest at FERN.
Yes, there's yet another carbon-capture project related to Iowa corn. At the Iowa Capital Dispatch on Tuesday, Jared Strong explained in Third carbon pipeline would traverse several eastern Iowa counties:
A proposed pipeline that would transport liquid carbon dioxide from ethanol plants in Cedar Rapids and Clinton would span about 90 miles in up to five eastern Iowa counties, according to a preliminary map of the project.
Wolf Carbon Solutions, a Canadian company that has operated one of North America’s largest carbon pipelines, wants to hold public meetings in September in the affected counties — the first step to gaining approval from the Iowa Utilities Board to construct the pipeline.
The company announced in January that it had an agreement with Archer-Daniels-Midland Company to transport captured carbon dioxide from ADM ethanol plants to Illinois, where it would be pumped deep into the ground.
It’s the third such proposal in less than a year and is smaller than the others. Summit Carbon Solutions’ project would span about 700 miles in the western and northern parts of the state. Navigator CO2 Ventures wants to lay about 800 miles of pipe that would bisect the state from northwest to southeast.
All of the projects seek to capitalize on federal tax credits that are meant as incentives to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The pipelines have been the subject of fierce debate in affected counties and at the Statehouse, where lawmakers considered legislation this year that might have temporarily or permanently prevented the use of eminent domain to construct the pipelines on cropland and other private property against the landowners’ wishes. Ultimately, the measures did not have enough support to pass.
The projects’ detractors argue that eminent domain should not be allowed because the pipelines do not benefit the general public.
“What it will do is make wealthy people even wealthier and put communities at risk and it does NOT provide any utility for Iowa,” wrote Diane Norden, of North Liberty, in the first objection to the Wolf pipeline that was submitted to the IUB last week.
Wolf’s project has the potential to affect landowners in Cedar, Clinton, Linn, Johnson and Scott counties. The company has asked the IUB to hold public meetings to discuss the project in those counties Sept. 13 to 15, concluding with a virtual meeting online. It’s unclear when the board might set the schedule. . . .
On Thursday, Mark Pitz at KCHA News in Charles City, Iowa, reported Third Carbon Pipeline Company Seeks IUB Public Meetings.
Here in South Dakota, the resistance is also making news. At the Mitchell Republic--and other venues in the Forum News chain-- Jeff Beach reported Wednesday in Landowners in path of carbon pipeline challenge constitutionality of South Dakota law:
A lawyer representing landowners in the path of a pipeline project says a South Dakota law that gives surveyors from the pipeline company access to private land is unconstitutional.
Brian Jorde of Nebraska-based Domina Law filed a legal challenge on June 28, arguing that a state statute cited by Summit Carbon Solutions in letters to landowners violates the South Dakota Constitution as well as the 14th Amendment to U.S. Constitution.
The filing seeks an injunction to keep representatives from Summit from going on to land where the pipeline might run and asks for a trial and a ruling on the constitutionality of the law.
The filing was made in McPherson County in north-central South Dakota, where landowners have been vocal in their opposition to the Summit pipeline. . . .
So far, Summit has only applied for permits in Iowa and South Dakota, but asked for more time to finalize its route in South Dakota.
The project has generated an unprecedented response with the South Dakota PUC, with a record number of comments and intervenors, with the vast majority stating their opposition to the project.
And the concerns continue at the county level.
Wednesday's Aberdeen American News included Alexandra Hardle's article Moratorium to slow Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline still an option for Brown Co. Commission. She reports:
Brown County commissioners will continue to monitor the possibility of enacting a moratorium that would essentially halt Summit Carbon Solutions work in the county.
That was a major takeaway from Tuesday's regular commission meeting at the Brown County Courthouse.
During the meeting, a landowner asked the commission approve a moratorium on Summit's construction until new planning and zoning ordinances can be put in place and noted the company's survey work.
. . .Some counties, including McPherson, have already enacted moratoriums. Chairman Duane Sutton said Brown County will continue to stay in contact with the PUC and monitor the situation, noting that there still is a lot to figure out.
Sutton said passing a year-long moratorium might already be a moot point since the PUC has extended Summit’s deadline indefinitely.
Brown County Deputy State’s Attorney Ross Aldentaler added that the county has been advised not to enact a moratorium because they are not enforceable. Not much can be done at the county level due to the fact that pipelines are governed by federal regulations, said Aldentaler.
Commissioner Denis Feickert expressed interest in enacting a moratorium in order to at least show the PUC that the county is concerned about the project.
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Related posts:
- Navigator CO2, POET sign letter of intent for carbon capture, utilization, and storage service
- Carbon capture pipeline blues: SD landowners call for dismissal of pipeline permit application
- Iowa Capital Dispatch: Group seeks end of ethanol carbon pipeline ‘harassment’
- Ethanol carbon capture pipeline digest: farmers, students, greenwashing, safety, law enforcement
- Storm Lake Time Pilot's Art Cullen: Ripping up CRP is a terrible signal for the planet
- Minnesota Public Utility Commission claims regulatory authority for carbon pipelines
- CO2 pipelines could affect the land, lives and livelihoods of South Dakota property owners
- SD News Watch: Proposed CO2 pipelines thrust SD into billion-dollar climate change debate
- About that permanent carbon storage by the Summit ethanol pipeline & Project Tundra
- Ethanol carbon capture pipeline news digest: political power and big money edition
- Ethanol carbon pipeline digest: trust & protest
- South Dakotans, Iowans don't hug CO2 pipeline
- Keloland: mostly negative public comments to SD Public Utilities Commission on CO2 pipeline
- 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
Map: The proposed route of the 2,000-mile Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline that will carry pressurized carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to a sequestration site a mile underground in central North Dakota. About 470 miles of the pipeline would be located in South Dakota.
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