While political waters roil around the anti-reproductive rights remarks made by endorsed Republican lieutenant governor candidate Matt Birk--see Star Tribune article Minnesota GOP candidate Matt Birk unapologetic about controversial comments on abortion, rape--Birk was down in Granite Falls Thursday, voicing support for the controversial Summit Carbon Solutions ethanol carbon pipeline.
At the Marshall Independent, Deb Gau reports at the end of Birk tours renewable energy sites:
Birk said he learned a lot from touring the Granite Falls Energy plant as well.
“There’s a ton of potential there,” he said of ethanol. Birk said that while he wasn’t against electric vehicles, they weren’t necessarily an option for everyone right now. Meanwhile, ethanol fuel mixes are already available. “It’s something we could be doing right now.”
Birk also voiced support for the carbon dioxide pipeline proposed by Summit Carbon Solutions. The proposed pipeline would collect carbon emissions from more than 30 ethanol plants, including Granite Falls Energy, and transport them to an underground storage site in North Dakota.
“If they don’t get that through, Minnesota ethanol producers won’t be able to be competitive,” Birk said.
Why do we suspect Birk hasn't bothered to visit Carbon Pipelines MN, a project of Montevideo-based environmental and clean energy organization CURE?
Competing with other states?
Never mind that Thursday's headlines suggest Minnesota's neighbors aren't as uncritical about Summit Carbon Solutions as Mr. Nuance. Mankato's KEYC used Dakota News Now report, South Dakota landowners question credibility of Summit Carbon Solutions owners, leadership, just a couple of days after the Aberdeen American News reported, Brown County Commission approves one-year moratorium on transmission pipelines.
The pipelines have become a campaing issue, Dakota Free Press reports in Note to Landowners Threatened by Republican CO2 Pipeline: Democrats Support County Control of Planning & Zoning, Oppose Eminent Domain for CO2 Ventures.
And in Iowa, where Bluestem was led to believe corn was king, there's more of the same. On July 12, Donnelle Eller reported 'The risk is not worth it': Iowans ask regulators to reject proposed carbon capture pipelines. We read a different take from a farmer:
. . . James Norris, whose Montgomery County farm is in the path of Summit's pipeline, said the projects "aren't the saviors of ethanol."
"If they were, every farmer would be lined up behind these projects," Norris said. "And they will have virtually no positive impact on the climate issue. If they did, climate organizations would back these projects."
"All these pipelines offer are permanent damage to our farms and real danger to our communities," he said. "This is all wrapped up in billions of dollars of subsidies and tax credits and massive corporate welfare."
"The ability for for-profit corporations to seize our land, while being stuffed full of cash from the American taxpayer, is criminal," Norris said.
There's more in the Register. Take Silvia Secchi's July 7 Opinion: Don't be fooled by exaggerated 'benefits' of carbon pipelines, where the University of Iowa professor of Geographical and Sustainability Sciences spells out the farmer's concise analysis:
One of the companies proposing pipelines in Iowa to sequester CO2 from ethanol production commissioned a report from a private firm, Ernst & Young , that vastly overestimates the economic benefits of the pipelines.
This is not the first time pipelines' benefits have been inflated — it has, in fact, happened repeatedly, from the Keystone XL to the Dakota Access pipeline. A report by Iowa State University economist Dave Swenson makes this clear.
These studies are a rhetorical device to convince decision makers and local communities of the benefits of pipelines, but they are not a very useful policy tool because, as I will detail below, they mischaracterize benefits and because they ignore costs, particularly environmental ones. The CO2 ethanol pipelines are different from oil pipelines like Keystone because they critically depend on subsidies from the federal government and California, so the public should have access to credible, science-based information on whether there are more effective ways to spend public money to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the environmental costs of all alternatives should be thoroughly assessed.
The Ernst & Young study follows the Dakota Access playbook in overestimating the economic impacts of the pipelines, which are largely transitory and limited to the construction period, and — even then — heavily depend on out-of-state inputs and labor.
The real economic benefits of the pipelines will be much lower than estimated by Ernst & Young because none of the pipe, valves, pumps, and so on, are manufactured in the pipeline states. And the highly skilled welders who would be employed during construction are likely to come from Louisiana, Oklahoma and other places where pipeline industries are clustered, not the Midwest. Swenson, who just retired from Iowa State and is an expert on these issues, confirmed that, for example, with the Dakota Access pipeline, only 16 Iowa-based welders were certified to work on the pipeline.
The transitory nature of the employment benefits in particular is masked by the use of “worker years” over the life of the project instead of assessing the employment effect every year. That approach would show how little long-term effects the projects have on employment in our region. Ernst & Young also overestimates the effects of the pipeline on the economy by using a national model instead of one that considers only the region of construction and operation, and by using that model to estimate tax impacts. The use of the national model inflates the indirect and induced economic activity effects.
The pipelines will have minimum positive economic impacts once they are installed, but the risks and long-term effects on land will be long-lasting. The bottom line is that this commissioned study overestimates the benefits and has nothing to contribute to the issue of costs: monetary costs of the subsidies that would fall on Iowans as taxpayers, health risks to human and animals, and environmental costs to the land.
Last but not least, let us consider the elephant in the room. The pipeline will provide a rationale to keep growing corn and using it for ethanol for a long time. The industry and the Register’s editorial board are well aware that the future of corn ethanol is not bright. Ethanol is a complement to gasoline, not a substitute for it. Half of Iowa corn acres and a third of US corn acres (over 30 million) go to produce 15 billion gallons of ethanol, about 10% of US consumption before COVID-19. This is the reason why we have the E10 mandate in the Renewable Fuel Standard.
The US has about 320 million acres of cropland overall. It is pretty obvious corn ethanol isn't scalable as a gasoline substitute, so its fortunes are tied to it. We should be seriously discussing ways to diversify Iowa’s agriculture away from corn, not invest resources in a technology that contributes to climate change and is not going to be economically competitive in the long term. It is unconscionable to even consider the use of public money and eminent domain for such projects.
It's curious that Birk frames the pipeline as a competition between Minnesota and other states, when the case the editorial board of the Register made in an April editorial Carbon pipelines have a long way to go to earn Iowans' trust, has yet to be honestly answered.
Walz loving on ethanol in Friday visit to Janesville
Not that Governor Walz was being a slouch on ethanol love this past week.
At the Mankato Free Press, Mark Fischenich reports in Janesville ethanol plant boosting efficiency:
At a time when oil prices have made it particularly painful to gas up a vehicle, when western democracies are struggling with the ethics of buying oil from countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia, when climate change is a worldwide concern, Gov. Tim Walz and officials from Guardian Energy in Janesville thought it was a good moment to highlight ethanol. . . .
“This plant is a pretty darn sophisticated plant,” said CEO Jeanne McCaherty, adding that ethanol skeptics fail to recognize the industry’s continuing success in producing more energy with fewer inputs. “... If you don’t have statistics from last year, you’re just out of date.”
The largest dry-mill ethanol plant in Minnesota, the facility just east of Janesville grinds more than 53 million bushels of corn each year purchased from about 2,600 farmers within 75 miles of Janesville. That corn is turned into more than 150 million gallons of ethanol annually, 4 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol, 260,000 tons of high-protein animal feed and 52 million pounds of corn oil — all without discharging any wastewater.
The cellulosic ethanol, which is shipped to California for sale, is responsible for 70% less carbon dioxide than a comparable amount of gasoline. For the standard starch ethanol, it’s 30% less carbon dioxide.
“We have a great environmental story to tell,” McCaherty said.
Then there’s the economic impact. Guardian employs 49 people in Janesville and purchases enough corn in a year that it could fill a line of 40-foot shipping containers stretching north to south across the entirety of Minnesota and continue nearly to Des Moines, Iowa.
After hitting him with more than a few statistics and giving him a plant tour, McCaherty thanked Walz for his support for the ethanol industry both as a 12-year member of Congress and as a first-term governor. The Democrat, who’s campaigning this year for another four years in the governor’s office, reiterated his support for renewable energy, crediting it for reducing pollution, lowering the price of a gallon of gas and spurring the domestic economy.
“This is not just about doing the right thing environmentally,” Walz said. “There’s money to be made.”
. . . He noted that ethanol and other biofuels are a topic that can bring together political leaders from both parties — at least ones from farm states. An example is the support for strong federal ethanol-blending requirements for gasoline.
“There’s a bipartisan group of governors making that case,” he said.
But there’s a place for state policies, too, according to the managers at the Janesville plant. Demand for ethanol, including the low-carbon versions being sold pretty much exclusively in California, can be boosted at the state level.
“The majority of fuel that’s produced goes to the coasts,” said Tracey Olson, chief operating officer at the plant.
Walz didn’t comment specifically on the idea of promoting cellulosic ethanol in Minnesota. But he indicated general support for boosting the amount of ethanol consumed in the state, noting that modern vehicles can handle more home-grown fuel than the 10% ethanol in standard gasoline.
“Our vehicles can run E-30 very efficiently,” he said.
No bashing of electric vehicles in there, at least.
There's more at KTSP in Gov. Walz tours ethanol plant, pushes increase in production.
As far as we can tell, the Janesville plant's owners haven't signed up to the three proposed ethanol CO2 pipelines--Summit Carbon Solutions, Navigator Ventures' Heartland Greenway, Wolf Carbon Solutions/ADM--so perhaps the topic just didn't come up.
Related posts:
- Ethanol carbon pipeline news digest: from the Guardian to the Aberdeen American News
- 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 pipeline
Photo: Granite Falls Energy's ethanol plant, via the company's website.
If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post.
Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.
I'm on Venmo for those who prefer to use this service: @Sally-Sorensen-6
Comments