A battle in rural Midwest as farmers fight carbon capture pipeline
Credit: Featured photo by Julian Schöll on Unsplash
A battle in rural Midwest as farmers fight carbon capture pipeline
July 16th, 2024 by By Nina Elkadi
Kathy Stockdale and her husband have spent almost 50 years working the land in central Iowa. As a family farmer raising corn and soybeans, Stockdale knows how to deal with harsh weather, poor crop prices, and an array of other challenges that come with making a living in agriculture.
But the operation she has spent a lifetime cultivating now faces a threat unlike any Stockdale has previously faced: Developers are planning to carve through her property with a pipeline carrying hazardous CO2 from ethanol plants, and there is little she can do to stop them.
The pipeline would run a mere 700 feet from Stockdale’s front doorstep and would create a barrier between the home she shares with her husband and the nearby home where her son lives. The farm’s soils and wetlands would be forever altered by the pipeline intrusion, and if the pipeline were to rupture, the damage could be catastrophic, Stockdale fears.
“It consumes your thoughts. You don’t sleep. You ask any of the landowners who have been fighting this, it’s been hard, it’s been stressful,” she said.
Multi-state opposition
The Stockdales are among many farm families in Iowa and four other Midwestern states fighting to kill the pipeline, which was proposed three years ago by Summit Carbon Solutions (SCS) as the “world’s largest carbon capture and storage project.” SCS had initially planned to start operating the 2,500-mile pipeline network, dubbed the Midwest Carbon Express, this year. Opposition across the rural Midwest has delayed the project, but approval by Iowa officials late last month has breathed new life into the undertaking.
SCS says its pipeline project would allow for the mitigation of 10 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, roughly equal to taking two million cars off the road each year. Along with Iowa, the proposed route would run through South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota and North Dakota, transporting CO2 generated at more than 50 ethanol plants. The captured carbon dioxide would be “permanently and safely stored deep underground” at a site in North Dakota, according to SCS.
The $5.5 billion project is “the most impactful development for the biofuels industry and Midwestern agriculture in decades,” according to a press statement by Bruce Rastetter, the CEO of SCS parent company Summit Agricultural Solutions.
Funding for the project is being provided by the agricultural equipment manufacturer John Deere, ethanol plants, and other private investors. Rich federal tax incentives and subsidies have been driving growth in corn ethanol production and the entrepreneurial interest in the pipelines.
Along with Iowa’s green light, a measure that could speed the pipeline’s approval in South Dakota is set to go before voters there as a ballot item in the Nov. 5 general election. In North Dakota, where Gov. Doug Burgum has announced his support for the project, he and two other members of a state committee are scheduled to vote on the project this fall. Minnesota officials continue to analyze the proposed project and seek public input, while Nebraska officials also continue to wrestle with the company’s plan amid opposition.
Opponents say they are unpersuaded by SCS’ promises and by the strong political and industry support attached to the project as they battle to overturn or block state approvals. They also aim to shine a spotlight on what they see as a fundamental problem with US policies that promotes expansion of the ethanol industry as an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels.
Growing evidence indicates that ethanol expansion might actually be worse for the environment than gasoline in part because the industry relies largely on the production of corn, an environmentally draining crop, critics say. As well, they point out that the pipelines themselves present their own environmental and public safety risks. Even small punctures could slowly release colorless, odorless CO2 into the environment.
Four years ago, the rupture of a CO2 pipeline in Mississippi caused the hospitalization of 45 people and forced the evacuation of 200. Four years later, residents are still suffering health effects.
“[Pipelines] are essentially life support for the ethanol business,” said Iowa farmer John Gilbert, who grows corn, soybeans, oats, and raises hogs on 800 acres in the central part of the state. “Ethanol should never have gotten passed off as a more environmentally beneficial fuel. By subsidizing ethanol, you may get more ethanol, but it’s at the cost of better farming practices.”
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