Summit Carbon Solutions is planning a $4.5 billion pipeline at an ethanol plant in Casselton, in eastern North Dakota. Continental Resources, headed by Harold Hamm, discussed the investment into Summit Carbon Solutions project. The plant is one of 31 ethanol facilities across Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and the Dakotas, where emissions would be captured and piped to western North Dakota.
The Summit pipeline system would extend 2,000 miles (3,219 kilometers) and could move up to 12 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, said Wade Boeshans, executive vice president of the Iowa-based pipeline developer.
The Summit project is one of at least two major CO2 pipelines planned for the Midwest. Navigator CO2 Ventures is planning a pipeline that will stretch over 1,200 miles through Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota and Illinois.
Similar CO2 pipeline plans are being considered elsewhere after the federal government increased tax credits, by 2026, to $50 for every metric ton of carbon dioxide a company sequesters. Ethanol producers are aiming to make the fuel more marketable along the West Coast and especially California which requires distributors in that state buy only ethanol with a low carbon emissions impact; companies that produce such ethanol can get a higher price.
In December the company began negotiating with landowners along the pipeline’s path for easements.
The company has not filed permit applications in North Dakota for the pipeline, or for the estimated dozen underground wells needed for storage. The project could employ up to 17,000 people during construction, and lead to 500 permanent jobs when it’s expected to come online in mid-2024.
