-Farm News photos by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby
Summit Carbon Solutions says its pipeline project will help Midwestern ethanol plants sell their product at a premium in the growing number of states and countries that have adopted low-carbon fuel standards.

Summit Carbon Solutions says it’s making significant progress on its carbon capture and storage project, now that more than 700 Iowa landowners have signed more than 1,200 voluntary easements in Iowa.

The company has also partnered with 32 ethanol plants in five Midwestern states, including 12 plants in Iowa, to develop the largest carbon capture and storage project in the world.

This multi-billion-dollar infrastructure project is designed to help these partner facilities reduce their carbon intensity scores, according to Summit Carbon Solutions. That will help these facilities sell their product at a premium in the growing number of states and countries that have adopted low-carbon fuel standards.

California, the largest ethanol consuming state, and Canada, the largest U.S. ethanol export partner, have both adopted low-carbon fuel standards that pay more for lower carbon fuels.

“Summit Carbon Solutions will reduce carbon emissions from the atmosphere and drive job growth across the Midwest,” said Jim Pirolli, chief commercial officer with Summit Carbon Solutions. “Since low-carbon fuel markets are expanding, this project will also provide a substantial boost to the ethanol and agricultural industries.”

-Farm News photos by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby
Summit Carbon Solutions says its pipeline project will help slash the ethanol industry’s carbon intensity score.

Summit Carbon Solutions continues to proceed through the permitting process steps with the Iowa Utilities Board and with officials in other states.

The company says its pipeline project represents a nearly $1 billion investment in Iowa, which will flow to local businesses, restaurants, hotels and more to spur economic growth. The project will also generate an average of $1.2 million in new property taxes in Iowa every year for each of the counties where the system will operate, based on a recent economic impact analysis by Ernst & Young.

The project has been controversial, though.

In town hall meetings and public hearings in recent months, a growing number of people have spoken out against the pipeline, citing concerns about safety hazards, dubious climate benefits and eminent domain issues.

Opponents say pipelines like the one Summit Carbon Solutions is developing primarily benefit pipeline companies, which are poised to earn billions of dollars, mainly due to federal tax incentives for sequestering carbon dioxide.

-Submitted photo
Jim Pirolli is the chief commercial officer for Summit Carbon solutions.

Capturing carbon dioxide

Summit Carbon Solutions’ pipeline project has been in the works for more than two years. The company’s management team came on board in June 2021, said Pirolli, who noted that the company has 81 full-time employees.

The team is working with ethanol plants in five Midwestern states, including Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota.

The project will include nearly 2,000 miles of pipeline to carry carbon dioxide from Midwestern ethanol refineries to North Dakota, where the gas would be injected underground, rather than released into the atmosphere.

“Carbon dioxide (CO2) is released during the ethanol fermentation process,” Pirolli explained.

With Summit Carbon Solutions’ pipeline project, this CO2 is captured and “scrubbed” to remove unwanted components. “It’s about 98 percent pure CO2 that we capture,” said Pirolli, who noted this CO2 can be used to make dry ice.

The CO2 will be transported through a pipeline to an area west of Bismarck, North Dakota, where it will be stored underground in sandstone, saline reservoirs.

“This area was the sea floor 480 million years ago, and the unique geology in this area today is conducive to the permanent storage of CO2,” Pirolli said.

This region contains large, porous reservoirs with high-salinity water. These reservoirs, more than a mile deep, are surrounded by impermeable stone. Also, there’s little or no seismic activity in this region. Summit Carbon Solutions plans to inject CO2 from its pipeline into an area known as the Broom Creek formation in North Dakota.

“There’s an estimated 250 billion tons of CO2 capacity here,” said Pirolli, who added that total annual carbon emissions in the United States are estimated around 5 billion tons.

The Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline project will have the capacity to capture and permanently store up to 12 million tons of CO2 every year. That’s the equivalent of removing 2.6 million vehicles from the roads annually, according to the company.

The pipeline project will also help slash the ethanol industry’s carbon intensity score, Pirolli added.

A carbon intensity score (CI score) is a measurement of all total hydrocarbons, or greenhouse gas emitted, versus the amount of energy consumed. It is measured in grams per megajoule of energy. The U.S. electrical grid, for example, has a CI score of 72 grams per megajoule, Pirolli said.

“The ethanol industry started off with a CI score around 99, but it’s now in the mid-50s, which is about half of the CI score of gasoline,” Pirolli noted. “This pipeline project would cut ethanol’s CI score to 22 to 25 grams per megajoule.”

This is important as demand for low-carbon fuel grows, and businesses focus more on low-carbon credits.

“Ethanol plants can make more money selling into a low-carbon fuel market,” Pirolli said. “Also, you can sell carbon removal credits to industries that are hard to de-carbonize, like the airlines and tech companies.”

All this benefits a state like Iowa that has worked hard to develop its ethanol industry, Pirolli said.

Summit Carbon Solutions reports that the ethanol industry contributes $4.5 billion to Iowa’s gross domestic product every year, supports 44,000 jobs, and purchases 57% of all the corn grown in Iowa.

Safety is key

What about the safety of Summit Carbon Solutions’ pipeline?

“There are 44,000 miles of pipelines operating in Iowa daily,” Pirolli said. “Pipelines are a reliable, proven, safe system.”

In addition, Summit Carbon Solutions’ pipeline will be outfitted with the latest technology, including fiber-optic monitoring equipment, he added.