The CO2 Report: Fermentation CO2, the Most Elemental Offshoot of Grain Ethanol Production

October 24, 2024

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by Tom Bryan (Ethanol Producer Magazine) Fermentation CO2, the most elemental offshoot of grain ethanol production, is no longer the industry’s quiet, behind-the-scenes byproduct, but its most discussed, chased and controversial output. The current race and clamor over CO2—sequestration, in particular—would have been hard to foresee 15 years ago when capturing the gas, no matter the reason, went largely unnoticed. That is, unnoticed by virtually everyone but those processing and utilizing the byproduct. Commercial CO2 sent “over-the-fence” from ethanol plants to purification partners has been a vital industry function for decades, and ethanol plants remain the nation’s leading source of top-grade CO2. While hard to nail down every merchant operation—offtake legalese and NDAs abound—the compressed, purified product is upgraded for food and beverage use, healthcare and dry ice production at more than 40, maybe as many as 50 U.S. ethanol plants.

Now, this legacy fleet of merchant suppliers is joined by a new breed of CO2 catchers, including those capturing to sequester, capturing to utilize and capturing to transform. These CO2 newcomers aren’t measuring their facility’s capture in metric tons per day like their merchant counterparts, but hundreds of thousands, even millions of metric tons per year.

This fall, Ethanol Producer Magazine set out to collect as much information as possible on U.S. ethanol plants engaging—right now or down the road—in carbon capture, utilization or sequestration (CCUS), from legacy merchant suppliers to future interstate pipeline participants. Ultimately, we collected information on 120 ethanol plants that currently capture CO2 or intend to soon. More than 80 of the facilities on our CCUS list are future carbon capture and storage (CCS) pipeline participants—at least 55 of them associated with a single high-profile aggregation effort—Summit Carbon Solutions—but many others doing onsite, nearby or in-state CCS. A vast majority of CCS projects on our list are classified as “Planned” or “Under Development,” with only five facilities—three doing CCS and two doing enhanced oil recovery (EOR)—tagged as “Operational,” meaning those CCUS facilities are running or ostensibly able to run as designed. The production figures reported in this story are based on either actual volumes or, in the case of unavailable data, conservative estimates by EPM staff.

Here’s what we know about CCUS in the U.S. ethanol industry right now.

Large, Aggregated, Interstate CCS

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At least 55 facilities on our list have publicized their intention to join the planned Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline, representing a conservatively estimated 13.5 million metric tons per year of stored CO2. Note: Summit’s sequestration figures are significantly higher than EPM’s; this publication opted to use a more conservative CO2 capture/storage calculation to avoid overestimating volumes, which are planned and approximate.

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Another 3 million metric tons of future CO2 storage is represented in the Large, Aggregated, Interstate CCS category by Wolf Carbon Solutions, which is principally tied to one producer—Archer Daniels Midland Co. Specifically, Wolf has been focused on bringing CO2 from ADM’s ethanol plants in Iowa to its existing CCS site in Illinois.

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But last November Wolf withdrew its permit application for the pipeline work—which it had submitted in mid-2023—with the Illinois Commerce Commission, stating that it would update and refile the application in early 2024. Ten months later, there appears to be no indication that the application has been refiled with the ICC, as of press time.

Adding a layer of complexity to the project, the U.S. EPA reportedly launched an enforcement action against ADM’s carbon storage enterprise due to an apparent leak within one of its sequestration wells. According to several media reports, sequestered CO2 migrated out of the approved storage site in mid-2024 but remained at least 5,000 feet below the surface and did not affect local drinking water. ADM has asserted that its ability to identify the issue early is evidence that its well monitoring equipment is effective and working as designed. It is unclear how this development will impact the ADM-Wolf project, if at all.

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Delivering about 940,000 metric tons of annual CO2 sequestration in the Large, Aggregated, Interstate CCS field is the interstate pipeline being spearheaded by Tallgrass. The Tallgrass project is unique because it is not a greenfield pipeline but a conversion of the company’s existing Trailblazer natural gas pipeline.

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Another player in the Large, Aggregated, Interstate CCS pipeline category is Carbon America, a Colorado-based project that could have easily been placed in the “Onsite, Nearby, In-State CCS” category had it not been for the fact that one of the three plants involved with the project is located in neighboring Nebraska.

Onsite, Nearby, In-State CCS

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North Dakota’s Red Trail Energy, a 65 MMgy ethanol plant in Richardton, North Dakota, came online with CCS in mid-2022—the first project of its kind allowed under what is called “state primacy” rules. The company made news earlier this year when it entered the voluntary carbon market, becoming the first ethanol plant to be issued CO2 removal credits, or CORCS, within a global marketplace. Then, in September, it was announced that longtime biofuels producer Gevo Inc. had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Red Trail—both the ethanol plant and its CCS assets—for $210 million.

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Also in North Dakota, Blue Flint Ethanol, a Harveststone Low Carbon Partners facility that produces 72 MMgy, brought its own CCS project online in 2023—just 100 miles northeast of Red Trail. The facility is actively capturing and storing about 200,000 metric tons of CO2 per year—near the plant. Blue Flint’s CO2 is permanently stored deep underground in what’s known as the Broom Creek formation.

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In Illinois, Alto Ingredients is working with a company called Vault 44.01 on a localized CCS plan for its Pekin ethanol production campus where three facilities produce, conservatively speaking, 625,000 metric tons of CO2.

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Vault is also working with Cardinal Ethanol in Indiana, which intends to sequester half a million metric tons of CO2 annually. Cardinal currently shows up as a merchant CO2 producer on EPM’s CCUS list, but it will likely be transitioning to CCS completely or splitting CO2 output between CCS and commercial processing. The same can be said of Front Range Energy in Colorado, which is also a longtime merchant CO2 supplier, but like Cardinal, has plans to sequester.

One Earth Energy, a Rex-owned ethanol plant in Illinois, is moving forward with what it calls One Earth Sequestration, an Under Development project to capture and sequester 420,000 metric tons of CO2 annually. Also in Illinois, Marquis Energy, which operates the largest ethanol plant in the nation in Hennepin—producing 400 million gallons per year—is making headway on its own onsite/nearby CCS project ready to capture and store about 1 million metric tons of CO2 annually.

In California, Aemetis is moving ahead with its proximity-to-production CCS project, which will reportedly accept CO2 from both of its biofuels facilities in the Golden State.

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Next-Generation CO2 Transformation

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Adkins Energy, an Illinois ethanol plant that produces 60 MMgy, is redirecting its fermentation CO2 (250,000 metric tons per year) to the production of green methanol (about 84,000 metric tons per year), a low-carbon shipping fuel. The project remains “Under Development.”

Similarly, Kansas Ethanol is working with a company called HYCO1 to turn the 200,000 metric tons of CO2 it produces annually into low-carbon, chemical-grade syngas that can be converted into myriad downstream products.

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Enhanced Oil Recovery

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Arkalon Energy and Bonanza BioEnergy, both in Kansas, are actively engaged in supplying fermentation CO2 for EOR.

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Similarly, Bonanza BioEnergy is paired up with Gary Climate Solutions, which is using the plant’s 150,000 metric tons of annual CO2 output for EOR in an oil field in southwest Kansas.

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Merchant CO2

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Sam Rushing, who has previously reported in EPM that some 75 percent of all merchant CO2 in the U.S. (40% of which comes from ethanol plants), is directed to the food and beverage sector. From that, Rushing says, about 50% is dedicated to food chilling, freezing and preservation. Non-food uses for CO2 range from metallurgy to health care; plus, industrial sector usage continues to grow, with new uses frequently emerging.

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Our CCUS list now includes 40 U.S. ethanol plants that currently have the operational capability to capture and supply CO2 to an onsite/nearby processing partner. Note: industry analysts like Rushing generally peg the number closer to 50. READ MORE

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