Summit Jumpstarts Additional Pipeline Efforts with Purchase of Navigator Easements

August 27, 2024

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by Jack O'Connor (Charles City Press/Iowa Capital Dispatch) Summit Carbon Solutions has purchased land easement agreements from a former rival company to help speed up its carbon pipeline construction project, Summit officials confirm.

Summit’s former rival, Navigator CO2, attempted its own carbon dioxide pipeline project before backing out in October 2023. With Navigator out of the picture, Summit has purchased many of Navigator’s agreements to expand its coverage area and save itself time by not needing to negotiate new agreements.

Summit received approval in June from the Iowa Utilities Board, now called Iowa Utilities Commission, on its pipeline project, with several provisions. Summit was given the power of eminent domain to force unwilling landowners into easement agreements.

The proposed project plan would build pipelines in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota to carry captured carbon dioxide from ethanol plants and transport it to underground reservoirs in North Dakota.

Roadblocks for Summit remain

Iowa is the only state to give Summit the green light so far. Before Summit begins construction in Iowa, the organization still has a handful of roadblocks to overcome.

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Summit will also be limited from engaging in any new easement agreements with landowners until the organization holds public informational meetings in affected counties as required by law.

Summit has released its schedule for 23 public informational meetings about the project across 23 different counties throughout August and September. The Floyd County meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 11, at 6 p.m. at the Swartzrock Community Center at the Floyd County Fairgrounds.

The Iowa chapter of the Sierra Club, an environmentalist activist group, has pledged to fight against Summit’s pipeline efforts. The group is currently working with affected landowners to oppose the project.

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In past sessions, the Iowa House of Representatives have passed three fairly bipartisan bills that would limit or regulate the use of eminent domain for these projects. However, none of the bills managed to pass the Iowa Senate.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has expressed support for the benefits carbon dioxide capture could have on the Iowa agriculture industry as long as the benefits account for landowner rights.

On Thursday, after a tour of the Chevron Renewable Energy Group’s facility in Newton, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks praised pipelines as a way to aid Iowa’s ethanol industry but avoided advocating for or against eminent domain by calling it a state issue, not a federal one.

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Summit isn’t purchasing every agreement made by Navigator, Summit spokesperson Sabrina Zenor said. The land easement agreements Navigator made for its proposed route did not always align with Summit’s route.

Some easement agreements in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and North Dakota have already been purchased but Zenor said the number of easement agreements purchased and when Summit will finish buying the old Navigator agreements it wants can’t be confirmed yet.

Summit notified some landowners whose easement agreement was purchased via letters mailed to them.

“Summit has acquired right-of-way easement options previously held by Navigator CO2, including the option(s) you signed with Navigator CO2,” Lee Blank, Summit’s chief executive, wrote in a letter to landowners whose easement agreements Summit purchased. “These options provide us with right-of-way access along expansion routes to the POET and Valero ethanol plants that have recently been added to our project.”

With the Iowa Utilities Commission declining to reconsider its permit approval, a lawsuit involving the pipeline project from landowners, environmental activists or Iowa counties is likely. READ MORE

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Excerpt from KTIV: That next big thing he (Kelly Nieuwenhuis) says is carbon capture, and many ethanol plants are already doing it at a small scale.

“It’s used for dry ice and refrigeration, and it’s used for the processing of livestock, and those markets are saturated,” he explained. “There’s not really any more demand for that part of our CO2 capture. But, if we could capture our CO2 at our ethanol plants and sequester it, they would instantly lower our carbon intensity scores by 30 points.”

A carbon intensity score, or carbon footprint, is measured by looking at everything in the production and delivery of the crop to an ethanol plant. The lower the score, the better.

Ethanol plants that move to carbon capture, Nieuwenhuis says, are moving in the right direction.

“There’s a good opportunity for several ethanol plants through CCS and other farming practices and other technologies that we have to lower carbon intensity scores to get to net zero by 2030,” he explained. “We got to take advantage of these opportunities and build domestic demand for what we produce here. And if we can get that done, our corn prices will increase, and that will increase the economy of rural America.”

That market growth coming in sustainable fuel.

“And the huge potential right now is still through small vehicle transportation, large vehicle transportation, like clear flame (sic) engines, that’s E98 diesel style engine, and then sustainable aviation fuel, which is 100 billion gallon world market.”

Nieuwenhuis says the United States needs to be in that market fight, instead of relying on others outside of our borders. To be a leader in that market, he says, is for the U.S. to tap into carbon sequestration, which is why he was one of the first to sign on when Summit Carbon Solutions approached him to route its carbon capture pipeline through his farmland.

When working with the land agent for the permanent and temporary easement, he asked for certain benchmarks.

“We wanted our pipes a little deeper than 48 inches to the top. We asked for 60 inches to the top of the pipes and they agreed to that,” he said about the depth of the pipes underground. “They they came back a couple times, and they increased the compensation. And I saw the future as far as ethanol being so important that we signed our easements.”

When asked about safety, and the unknowns of a project like this, Nieuwenhuis says he isn’t too worried.

“We’ve got four pipelines through our other farms, and I’ve never seen them in 40 years or more. You know, this is going to be brand new technology, brand new pipes,” he said. “, I’m confident this is going to be safe. "

With this project, he’s excited for the future of agriculture and farming in Iowa.

“I see the best, biggest benefit to this pipeline is for the next generation,” he said. “I’m 65 years of age and don’t plan on farming forever. But, we keep asking ourselves, how do we get young people back into agriculture? Well, the first thing we need is profitability, and we want those that profit through markets like biofuels instead of subsidies from farm programs. So to get the next generation excited and entrenched into agriculture, I think this is a great opportunity, and to be part of that, to make sure the future is bright is key to me as a farmer.” READ MORE