Some catch-up on ethanol carbon capture news after taking the weekend off.
Just before the Memorial Day weekend, Jeff Beach reported for the North Dakota Monitor in Landowners call communication with Summit ‘horrendous’ during CO2 pipeline rehearing:
WAHPETON, N.D. — Communication, or the lack of it, between Summit Carbon Solutions and North Dakota landowners was highlighted in testimony Friday during a Public Service Commission hearing on Summit’s proposed carbon capture pipeline.
Richland County landowner Loren Staroba and other landowners testified that they have been frustrated by a lack of communication throughout the pipeline siting process.
Staroba said Summit sent him a written request for survey access that included wrong information, including identifying that land as being in Dickey County, not Richland.
“Do we want to work with a company that can’t even get the county correct?” Staroba asked.
Staroba said he has proposed a reroute to get the pipeline from cutting across a section, but felt he has been ignored.
He cited other landowners that were able to get the pipeline routed around their property but only because the PSC singled out those landowners after the 2023 round of public hearings.
The three-member PSC denied Summit a pipeline route permit last year but the company has made changes to its route and appealed that decision. The PSC is in the middle of hearings on the Summit pipeline as it reconsiders the company’s application.
Friday’s hearing started with four landowners represented by Domina Law attorney Brian Jorde, who has clients across the footprint of the Summit pipeline, which would run through Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota.
All four landowners complained that Summit has not communicated with them adequately.
Commissioner Sheri Haugen-Hoffart asked two of those landowners why they hadn’t reached out to Summit in the last year.
Those landowners said they had hoped the project would go away.
Jorde said the burden was on Summit to address the concerns that the landowners have made.
Jorde said letters sent to Summit attorneys a month ago did not elicit a response until those letters were filed with PSC. Then responses came in the last few days.
Later in the all-day hearing, Ben Dotzenrod repeated those complaints.
“The communication has been horrendous, like a lot of people have said,” Dotzenrod said.
Among those testifying in favor of the pipeline were Andew Mauch, who farms in Richland County and is president of the North Dakota Corn Growers Association. He read a statement of support that he said received unanimous approval from the group’s board on the benefits of the pipeline for ethanol and the growers who supply ethanol plants with corn.
He also has signed an easement agreement with Summit. He said Summit has answered his questions about the pipeline, including Summit’s ability to repair drain tile on the fields.
Ryan Carter, chief operating officer of Tharaldson Ethanol at Casselton, the only North Dakota ethanol plant among the 57 plants that have signed on to the Summit carbon capture and sequestration project, also testified.
He said that with the project and other efforts to lower its carbon intensity, Tharaldson Ethanol could become eligible to sell into the emerging sustainable aviation fuel market.
Mauch called that market a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“If we won’t be able to play in this market, our price of corn is dramatically going to be decreased,” Mauch said.
Another farmer, Karla Waloch of Sargent County, said even with the advent of the ethanol industry, “the price of corn has still gone up and down.”
Concerns from the landowners including damage to farmland, pointing to damage to farmland still evident decades after other pipelines were put in.
“The land is scarred,” Starboda said.
Jeanne Lugert said Summit’s offer to compensate farmers in exchange for the voluntary easement fell far short.
“It wasn’t anything,” she said in a response to a Summit attorney. “And since I haven’t heard a single thing from Summit since, I have no idea what you’re going to do.”
Landowners also cited safety concerns. Lugert complained that at a safety meeting held in Mantador that Summit offered little useful information.
“They really didn’t answer the questions,” Lugert said.
Opponents often cite a carbon pipeline rupture in Mississippi in 2022 that sent dozens of people to the hospital. There also was a leak this year in Louisiana.
Iowa-based Summit calls its $8 billion project the world’s largest for capturing carbon. The CO2 would be stored underground northwest of Bismarck.
There would be 22.7 miles in Cass County, running south from the ethanol plant at Casselton. There would be two sections of the 66 miles of pipeline in Richland County. One section would come from the Tharaldson ethanol plant near Casselton. It would connect to a line that would come from the Green Plains ethanol plant at Fergus Falls, Minnesota.
The CO2 would flow through Sargent (40 miles) and Dickey (37.4 miles) before connecting to the main trunk of the pipeline in South Dakota.
Technical hearings, with no public testimony, are set next week in Bismarck. A final public hearing is June 4 in Linton.
And in today's Monitor, Beach reports more on the uncertain economics of this for farmers in Corn price connection to carbon capture hard to pin down:
The ethanol industry says capturing carbon emissions from ethanol plants and storing it underground is needed to help the industry keep up with the trend toward greener energy.
But it’s unclear what the direct benefit to the farmers who supply corn to the ethanol plant might be.
David Ripplinger is an associate professor at North Dakota State University, who specializes in renewable fuels.
“So everybody always asks me, ‘Well, what’s the price of carbon?’” Ripplinger said. “The problem is, there isn’t a single price of carbon.
“It’s not as if there’s a futures market or a spot market and transparency of a price, let alone what it might be for a particular farmer or rancher.”
Two North Dakota ethanol plants are already capturing carbon, benefiting from being in the western part of the state where the right geology for underground storage is nearby.
There’s also the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline, which the Iowa-based company calls the world’s largest carbon capture and storage project. The company hopes to connect 57 ethanol plants to underground storage sites northwest of Bismarck.
The pipeline project is expected to benefit from huge federal incentives in the form of tax credits.
The tax credits go to the ethanol plant or to the pipeline developer.
“The ones who are investing billions of dollars are the ones who are going to benefit,” Ripplinger said.
While the investments may not be in the billions, investors in Summit’s $8 billion project include Continental Resources, an oil and gas company that operates in North Dakota; Gary Tharaldson, owner of Tharaldson Ethanol, the only North Dakota ethanol plant signed on to the project; and agribusiness giant John Deere.
At the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck last week, Summit Carbon Solutions co-founder Bruce Rastetter took the stage with Harold Hamm of Continental Resources to highlight the ag-energy partnership of the two companies.
“Profitability drives investment,” Rastetter said in attracting investors such as John Deere.
The three-member Public Service Commission is in the middle of hearings on the Summit pipeline as it reconsiders the company’s permit application. Technical hearings are set this week in Bismarck and a public hearing is June 4 in Linton.
The PSC denied Summit a permit last year but the company has made changes to its route and appealed that decision.
Summit Carbon Solutions CEO Lee Blank, in an interview with the North Dakota Monitor, said the ethanol plant partners will benefit from the project, but how much of a benefit it provides will vary from plant to plant. He said the plants should get a minimum benefit of 20 cents per gallon of ethanol.
But Blank would not offer an estimated price premium that could be passed on to farmers for the corn used to produce ethanol.
“It is still the concept of a rising tide lifts all boats,” Blank said.
Recouping investment
The two North Dakota plants that have developed their own carbon capture and storage systems are Red Trail near Richardton and Blue Flint near Underwood.
Jodi Johnson, CEO of Red Trail, said the carbon capture project was a $35 million investment that will take time to pay off. She said the project doesn’t mean it can pay a premium price to corn growers but could provide a benefit to farmers who are partners in Red Trail.
North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring is among those partners as a farmer southeast of Bismarck. He said he didn’t expect to see a benefit from carbon storage right away but hopes to down the road.
Ripplinger said an ethanol plant such as Red Trail forging ahead on its own has to bear those upfront costs.
“The ultimate benefit to farmers in the region would be a stronger local customer,” Ripplinger said.
Keeping up
For Andrew Mauch, president of the North Dakota Corn Growers Association, it’s not so much about expecting a price bump for corn with carbon capture, it’s about not getting left out of the low-carbon fuel market.
“If that market expands and we’re not qualified, our price is going to drop substantially,” said Mauch who farms near Mooreton.
Red Trail is developing a program with farmers that may lead to a premium price for those who are able to document growing low-carbon corn that will help further lower the ethanol plant’s carbon-intensity score. But Johnson said it was too early to estimate what that premium might be.
Blank also noted that trend.
“I think, over time, we will see the farmer and the ethanol industry probably work much more hand in hand,” Blank said.
But Ripplinger said if those low-carbon practices become widespread, that premium isn’t really a premium anymore.
“So if it’s all low-carbon corn, but it’s not low-carbon corn anymore. That’s just corn,” Ripplinger said. “It’s kind of the idea of, if everybody’s special, nobody’s special.”
The North Dakota Monitor articles above are republished online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
Photo: A truck delivers corn to the Tharaldson Ethanol plant near Casselton, North Dakota, on May 15, 2024. (Jeff Beach/North Dakota Monitor).
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