By Jeff Beach, the North Dakota Industrial Commission on Thursday took a significant step by approving a plan to accept millions of tons of carbon dioxide for permanent underground storage. This decision was made against the wishes of some landowners in the storage area. Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions aims to build a network of pipelines that will gather carbon emissions from ethanol plants across five states. If successfully constructed, the pipeline will terminate west of Bismarck, with three injection wells pumping the carbon deep beneath private property into pore space - the gaps and voids between rocks.

North Dakota's Bold Move in Carbon Storage

Compensation and Legal Challenges

Summit compensates landowners for the use of their pore space, but an attorney representing a group of landowners questions the accuracy of the model Summit uses to estimate where the gas will go when pumped underground. The Industrial Commission, composed of outgoing Gov. Doug Burgum, Attorney General Drew Wrigley, and Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring, unanimously approved the permits. A lawsuit by the Northwest Landowners Association in North Dakota is already challenging the constitutionality of the amalgamation rule.About 92% of landowners in the 90,000-acre sequestration area for Summit are participating voluntarily. The region includes parts of Oliver, Mercer, and Morton counties. Department of Mineral Resources staff stated that landowners objecting to the project accounted for less than 2% of the acres. Carbon will be injected into the Broom Creek Formation about 5,500 feet below ground level.

Economic Incentives and Benefits

Summit estimates it will pump about 18 million tons of carbon dioxide into the storage area each year. The company will take advantage of federal tax credits of $85 per ton of carbon stored as an incentive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Access to carbon capture and storage can significantly reduce an ethanol plant's carbon score. Low-carbon ethanol may be able to fetch a premium price, which could also benefit corn growers. The carbon is captured during the fermentation process of turning corn into ethanol fuel.Tharaldson Ethanol at Casselton is the only North Dakota ethanol plant in the Summit pipeline project. Two other North Dakota ethanol plants, Red Trail Energy at Richardton and Blue Flint Ethanol near Underwood, are already capturing and sequestering carbon and are located close to areas with suitable geology for carbon sequestration.

Safety Concerns and Reactions

After the vote, project opponents cited a leak at a carbon sequestration facility in Decatur, Illinois, where corrosion allowed the gas to escape outside the storage area. "Recent incidents in Illinois, where CO2 leaked underground, demonstrate that we do not know enough about this technology to use North Dakota as a testing ground. Even Summit has stated that they cannot know the impacts of carbon dumping until they do them," Scott Skokos, executive director of the Dakota Resource Council, a North Dakota-based environmental group, said in a news release.However, the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources determined that the storage wells do not endanger human health or the environment, and that Summit had made a good-faith effort to work with landowners in the sequestration area. Officials did note the objection of some landowners, such as Kurt Swenson, who lives south of Beulah and has property in Oliver and Mercer counties. "I tried for a long time to negotiate with Summit," Swenson told the North Dakota Monitor last week. He said he has been waiting three years for a counter-proposal from the company.Summit Carbon Solutions has obtained pipeline permits in Iowa and North Dakota. Minnesota approved a short segment of the route on Thursday. Summit still needs a permit in South Dakota, and Nebraska has no state agency that permits carbon pipelines. In most states, it is the Environmental Protection Agency that permits CO2 storage wells, but North Dakota was the first state to be granted primacy in Class VI injection well permitting.This story has been updated with additional detail and reaction. North Dakota Monitor is part of the States Newsroom, a network of similar news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.