Glacial Lakes Energy Voices Support for Carbon Pipeline

by Sarah Parkin (Dakota News Now) The Glacial Lakes Energy Plant in Mina held a media day Wednesday to provide information as to why they’re joining Summit Carbon Solutions’ carbon dioxide pipeline project.

State representatives, emergency managers and press gathered at the Mina ethanol plant Wednesday to hear answers to the many questions surrounding the carbon pipeline.

”It’s an opportunity to answer questions about the safety that goes into the engineering, design and operation of a modern pipeline system and really put people at ease and provide them with facts that help folks make an informed decision,” said Summit Carbon Solutions Chief Commercial Officer Jim Piroli.

The pipeline is set to run through nearly 480 miles of South Dakota. The purpose is to capture carbon dioxide from ethanol plants and sequester it underground in North Dakota. This will help reduce the carbon emission footprints of the plants.

The Glacial Lakes Energy ethanol plant in Mina produces 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Joining Summit’s pipeline project could cut those emissions in half.

”Glacial Lakes Energy supports the project. We’ve partnered with Summit now early on and the project is important to us because it presents an opportunity to lower our carbon intensity score to the effect of up to 50%,” said Glacial Lakes Energy Plant CEO Jim Seuer.

That doesn’t mean Glacial Lakes Energy staff haven’t heard concerns from landowners along the pipeline’s route who fear that eminent domain will be utilized.

”I’ve taken dozen and dozen of calls and forwarded on those questions and those concerns to the folks at Summit. We’re very engaged with the landowners at this point,” said Seuer. READ MORE