We've been lagging in our coverage of the heavily tax subsidized ethanol carbon pipeline projects proposed here in the upper Midwest.
But those hoping for riches on the public dime haven't rested.
At the Forum News Service's AgWeek, Jeff Beach reports in Summit Carbon Solutions files for pipeline permit on part of Minnesota route:
Summit Carbon Solutions, the company behind a plan to capture carbon emissions from ethanol plants in five states and pipe it to western North Dakota for storage, has filed for its first permits in Minnesota.
Summit has filed documents with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission for pipeline permits in Otter Tail and Wilkin counties. That portion of the pipeline would connect the Green Plains Ethanol plant in Fergus Falls, one of six Minnesota ethanol plants that are part of the project.
The pipeline would run west through Wilkin County, crossing into North Dakota south of Breckenridge, Minnesota. Application documents can be found on the PUC website ; the docket number is 22-422.
The 28.1 miles of pipeline would cost $50 million to build, according to permit documents filed on Sept. 12. The Iowa-based company says it expects to start construction in the second half of 2023 and construction is expected to take about 10 months.
That portion of the pipeline would be 4 inches in diameter and would connect with another branch of the pipeline running south from the Tharaldson Ethanol plant at Casselton, North Dakota, the only North Dakota plant that is part of the project. . . .
Summit also would get a huge amount of revenue from federal tax credits — $85 per ton of greenhouse gasses stored. Summit says the project will have the capacity to capture and store up to 12 million tons of liquid carbon dioxide every year, pumping it underground northwest of Bismarck, North Dakota.
At $85 per ton, 12 million tons would mean more than $1 billion in federal tax credits alone. Summit says it would also get a share of the price of the ethanol sold into low-carbon markets.
The project has drawn objections from landowners who don’t want a hazardous materials pipeline on their property and fear that Summit will use eminent domain to obtain right-of-way.
Environmental groups, such as Minnesota-based CURE (Clean Up the River Environment) also have criticized the project and others like it.
“These companies are racing to put pipelines in the ground to take advantage of lucrative federal subsidies. But the ability of private corporations to make a profit is not a sound basis for deciding whether we need these large-scale, disruptive, and dangerous pipelines,” Maggie Schuppert, campaigns director for CURE said in a news release. “All Minnesotans — but especially those on the frontlines of these risky projects — need to be at the decision-making table.”
According to documents filed with the PUC, the pipeline will impact 319.2 acres of prime farmland in Otter Tail and Willkin counties. Another 18 acres are classified as farmland of statewide importance.
It would cross the Pelican, Otter Tail and Bois de Sioux rivers, as well as other unnamed streams, before crossing into North Dakota. . . .
Read the entire article at AgWeek. Clean Up The River Environment (CURE) posted in Summit submits CO2 pipeline route permit application to PUC for Otter Tail & Wilkin Counties:
In mid-September, Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions (Summit) submitted its first route permit application to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) for the Otter Tail and Wilkin Counties section of its proposed Midwest Carbon Express CO2 pipeline network in Minnesota. This leg of the project is 28.1 miles, a small fraction of the more than 212 miles of highly pressurized hazardous liquid CO2 pipeline proposed for Minnesota. The PUC ruled in June that they have jurisdiction over the siting of CO2 pipelines.
Submitting a permit application to the PUC is one of many steps Summit needs to take before they can begin the construction of any CO2 pipelines in Minnesota, including gaining approval from various local, State, and Federal regulatory agencies. This process must also include a thorough analysis of the many health, safety, environmental, and economic impacts of these novel pipelines, none of which have previously been built in Minnesota.
“This is precisely what the citizen petition for environmental review that CURE submitted in November 2021 was meant to do—ensure that the potential environmental and social impacts of the pipeline across its entire Minnesota footprint are considered,” said Sarah Mooradian, Policy Director for CURE. “The Minnesota Environmental Protection Act (MEPA) assures that the PUC will consider the cumulative effects of the entire project, not just the effects of Summit’s artificially created project segments.”
Summit’s proposed CO2 pipeline network will cut through Chippewa, Cottonwood, Jackson, Kandiyohi, Martin, Otter Tail, Redwood, Renville, Wilkin, and Yellow Medicine Counties. Key landowners along the pipeline route have stated they will not sign easements for this project, and Minnesota does not currently have eminent domain for CO2 pipeline projects.
Landowners and other community members have expressed concerns about the safety and negative impacts of CO2 pipelines as well as skepticism about the company’s claims that they will be a boon to rural communities.
“It’s not about farmers or ‘corn,’” said Allen Bries, a landowner near Fergus Falls. “It puts my family and Fergus Falls residents at risk of unseen and undetected hazardous contamination in the event the CO2 pipeline fails. It will also devalue our land. I said NO to an easement.”
Carol Kopel owns farmland near Lamberton, and she shares the concerns of many landowners.
“The damage that will occur to the farmland, damage to the tiling, damage to the county tiles. They want us to believe the land will be restored to its previous condition, but it will take many years for that to happen, if ever.” Kopel said. She continued, “Equally important are the safety issues. No project of this magnitude has ever been done, and it is of concern to me that there are too many unknowns.”
The CO2 pipeline project proposed by Summit is part of an emerging industry known as Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS). CCUS is an expensive, experimental, and to date an unsuccessful strategy for reducing the emissions of fossil-fuel power plants and other industrial facilities such as ethanol plants by capturing a part of the CO2 they spew into the atmosphere.
The concern held by CURE and other community-based organizations throughout the Midwest is that the safety, well-being, and rights of the people and communities these projects will directly impact are being sidelined.
“These companies are racing to put pipelines in the ground to take advantage of lucrative federal subsidies. But the ability of private corporations to make a profit is not a sound basis for deciding whether we need these large-scale, disruptive, and dangerous pipelines,” stated Maggie Schuppert, Campaigns Director for CURE. “All Minnesotans—but especially those on the frontlines of these risky projects—need to be at the decision-making table.”
PUC Docket Number: 22-422
For more information about these CO2 pipeline projects go to www.carbonpipelinesmn.org.
CURE (Clean Up the River Environment) is a rural-based democracy organization with offices in Montevideo, Minnesota. Its work strives to build grassroots community power to address the linkages between environmental challenges, societal inequities, and other systemic challenges facing communities.
We'll post more as the story develops.
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- SD News Watch: Proposed CO2 pipelines thrust SD into billion-dollar climate change debate
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- 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
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Map: The proposed route of Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline in Otter Tail and Wilkins Counties in Minnesota (Map Source: Summit Carbon Solutions route permit applications to the Minnesota PUC, via CURE).
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