Crushing Ethanol’s CO2 Footprint: Summit Carbon Launches 10MT Carbon Capture & Storage Monster; Green Plains Is in

February 18, 2021

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by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) Sometimes, as the song says, you gotta bury your troubles, and when your trouble is the cost of carbon dioxide emission, and you’re in the ethanol business, you were stymied until a few minutes ago, when news crossed the wires that Summit Carbon Solutions is building the largest carbon capture and storage project in the world, 10 million tons of it. For you, ethanol producer.

That’s 2 million cars off the road, as carbon equivalencies go. And it’s built by ethanol folk — Summit Carbon Solutions is a unit of Summit Agricultural Group, headed by one of the industry’s highest profile investors, Bruce Rastetter.

The pipeline and storage

The project that will create the infrastructure to transport CO2 from Iowa to North Dakota for deposit into geologic storage. The exact location in North Dakota has not been disclosed — we’re betting on the salt caves near Bismarck, North Dakota.

Summit Carbon Solutions is proceeding with initial engineering, design and permitting associated with the project, which will permanently store carbon dioxide in underground saline geologic formations.

“This is a giant leap forward for the biofuels industry,” said Rastetter. “Carbon capture and storage is a future-focused solution that allows the biorefiners to lower their already attractive carbon footprint by up to 50 percent.”

The scope

Let’s put this in context. A 100 million gallon per year ethanol biorefinery produces around 650,000 tons of CO2 per year, more or less. So, you could store 15 years of CO2 — all of it — for a large biorefinery in one CC&S project of this size. The negative cost of CO2 is right around $200 per ton in California — putting the value of the CO2 offtakes here at $2 billion in today’s dollars. And Lux Research is out with a report this morning projecting that the CO2 Utilization industry will generate $550B in sales by 2040.

Green Plains is in

Already this morning Green Plains has committed three of its biorefineries to the project, with a long-term carbon offtake agreement. Green Plains CEO Todd Becker predicts that his company will achieve “a minimum of 15 cents per gallon margin uplift as well as potential for carbon credits, 45Q tax incentives and direct returns on our investment in the pipeline and SCS,” based on current California LCFS prices.”

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Think of it, though, a CO2 pipeline. “Sequester” today could lead to “carbon capture and use” in the not distant future as Summit finds more distribution for its captured carbon.

Which is a way of saying, all you power to X types looking to turn CO2 plus water into fuels using renewable power, let me commend North Dakota to your attention. They produce about a quarter of the state’s power from wind. Nice industry for North Dakota, more sustainable than the Bakken shale play. Entrepreneurs, rev your engines. READ MORE

DigestConnect #44 - CCS, Green H2, Aqueous CO2 A look at Carbon Capture & Storage, aqueous CO2 for indoor ag, and green hydrogen from ethanol is ready for your review . We were joined by CO2 GRO's Dr. Matt Julius and Aaron Archibald, SBI Bioenergy's Jag Singh and Summit Ag CEO Bruce Rastetter. WATCH VIDEO

Northwest Iowa ethanol plant joins large-scale project to capture and store carbon (Sioux City Journal)

MEMBER NEWS: CORN LP ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP WITH SUMMIT CARBON SOLUTIONS (Iowa Renewable Fuels Association)

Green Plains Announces Carbon Sequestration Partnership with Summit Carbon Solutions (Green Plains)

Ringneck joins forces with Summit Ag to reduce carbon footprint (Onida Watchman)

Large-scale CCS project will sequester CO2 from ethanol plants (Ethanol Producer Magazine)

Summit Carbon Solutions Announces Expansion into Nebraska and Consultant Partnerships (Summit Carbon Solutions)