Giant Pipeline In US Midwest Tests Future Of Carbon Capture -- Reuters -- November 23, 2021

Synopsis:

• ethanol plants in Iowa produce a lot of CO2
• opportunity for these plants to pipe CO2 to North Dakota where it can be stored
• Summit Carbon Solutions: pipeline across midwest and injection sites in North Dakota
• farmers in Iowa not happy with idea of pipelines across their land: NIMBY
• see this post for more.
  

Original Post

Feature story of the day. You may have to "register" to get to article over at Reuters but it's free. I've archived the article. Regular readers know what this is all about. I'll come back to it later when I get caught up.

Link here. 

Nov 23 (Reuters) - Dan Tronchetti received a letter in August that alarmed him: Summit Carbon Solutions, a company he'd never heard of, wanted his permission to conduct survey work for a 2,000-mile pipeline it planned to route through his Iowa corn and soybean fields.

The project, dubbed the Midwest Carbon Express, had ambitions to become the world's largest carbon dioxide pipeline, moving climate-warming greenhouse gases from Midwest biofuels plants to North Dakota for permanent storage underground.

But Tronchetti's first concern was for his livelihood. "It would go more than half a mile through prime farmland," he said.

The 65-year-old is among dozens of landowners along the route who are refusing to cede their property to the project, according to Reuters interviews with five landowners, four community groups organizing opposition, several academics and industry sources plus a review of filings with state regulators.

The impasse could escalate into potential court battles if Summit tries to seize the land by claiming eminent domain. Such legal fights contributed to the cancellation of the Keystone XL oil pipeline this year.

The outcome of the dispute poses huge stakes for Summit's $4.5 billion project, and for the Midwest ethanol producers it would serve who are hoping to wipe away their carbon footprints and burnish their green credentials.

It also represents what could be the biggest test yet for the carbon capture and storage (CCS) industry, which has struggled for years but which advocates say could become a powerful tool in the global fight against climate change.

Underground geological formations in the United States have the potential to store 2.6 trillion tons of planet-warming CO2, enough to cover all of America's historical emissions and those to come for centuries, according to the Department of Energy.

But there are open questions about whether CCS can ever fill them. Despite billions of dollars of public investment over the past decade, the technology remains relatively untested.

The United States boasts just 12 operational commercial CCS facilities that together have an annual capacity to store away 19.64 million tons of carbon, about 0.4% of national emissions.

Much, much more at the link; this is simply the beginning of a long, long article.