US Carbon Pipeline Faces Setback as Residents Refuse to Cede Land Rights

by Leah Douglas (Reuters) Navigator CO2 Ventures’ proposed carbon pipeline project in the U.S. Midwest is struggling to secure a site to store millions of tons of greenhouse gas it hopes to collect from the region’s ethanol plants, as residents refuse to give up land rights over fears the underground reservoirs could leak, according to documents reviewed by Reuters.

The issue could slow the project, one of three carbon pipelines planned in the Midwest that aims to help the ethanol industry reduce its climate footprint in line with federal government efforts to decarbonize the U.S. economy. The projects are a major test of the viability of carbon capture and storage as a climate solution.

In Illinois, Navigator has restarted the permit process for its Heartland Greenway pipeline in part due to difficulty getting land rights from residents living above the underground formations where it hopes to store up to 15 million metric tons annually of carbon dioxide, according to a Reuters review of the state regulatory docket and interviews with landowners along the proposed route.

Residents along the proposed route of the pipeline, as well as along the routes of two other carbon pipelines proposed by Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions and Denver-based Wolf Carbon Solutions, have expressed concern about damage to their farmland from installing the pipeline and safety risks if the pipeline were to leak.

Some living above Navigator's proposed sequestration site are also worried that carbon dioxide stored 5,800 feet underground could seep upward and contaminate their groundwater with carbonic acid, which is formed when carbon dioxide meets water.

Acidification of groundwater can kill plants or sub-soil animals and increase concentration of metals in drinking water, according to research by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Department of Energy in 2021 invested $4 million for research on the issue.

In January, Navigator withdrew its initial permit application with the Illinois Commerce Commission. This came two months after a senior ICC engineer recommended that the commission deny the company's application because it had not secured the necessary sequestration site, the commission's docket shows.

Navigator must secure land rights within an 11-month window from submitting the application, according to state law.

In a new permit application filed in late February, Navigator added 42 miles of pipeline leading to a second sequestration site - an underground geologic formation where it would store captured carbon dioxide - in a county neighboring where it had initially proposed to store carbon.

The company also pushed back its expected timeline for receiving federal, state, and county approvals by several months.

Elsewhere along its proposed route - which crosses Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Minnesota, in addition to Illinois - Navigator could seek eminent domain authority from regulators in cases where landowners refused to sign easements.

But Illinois law does not address the use of eminent domain above underground pore space, meaning Navigator may need to get every landowner living over the sequestration area to agree to sell off a portion of their land rights.

The two other major carbon pipeline projects are working to secure underground carbon storage space.

Summit has negotiated easements with landowners for more than 85% of its sequestration site in North Dakota, the company told Reuters.

Wolf, which is partnered with grain processor Archer-Daniels-Midland Co (ADM.N), declined to provide updated information but said last year that it plans to store captured carbon at a site already owned by ADM. READ MORE

Excerpt from WSIU: Jeff Reints only has to look out across his field to see where most of his corn ends up.

“We're directly west of the Shell Rock POET ethanol plant approximately a short mile away,” he said while walking through corn stalks left from last year’s harvest.

But when he found out the nearby ethanol plant would be a part of a proposed pipeline to carry away carbon dioxide, he was concerned. When he learned the pipeline would run underneath his northeast Iowa farm, he became staunchly opposed.

“This is some of the best farmland the good Lord has entrusted us with to be stewards of,” Reints said. “It's just a shame to think that just for private gain, that they're going to put that scar across our land.” READ MORE