(The Center Square) – A handful of opponents of the Summit Carbon Solutions carbon capture pipeline rallied Thursday before company CEO Bruce Rastetter spoke at GreenSeam’s 2021 Rural Forum.
The event was held outside Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center in Mankato, Minn.
The proposed 2,000-mile, multistate Midwest Carbon Express Pipeline could go through Chippewa, Redwood, Renville and Yellow Medicine counties in Minnesota and annually capture 12 million tons of carbon dioxide, West Central Tribune reported.
Craig Woodward, who lives in Mankato and owns land in Iowa, claimed the property value of land involved in the project would plummet.
“I can’t think of any landowner that would want to have a hazardous liquid pipeline buried on their land.”
Food & Water Watch organizer Emma Schmit said at the rally that carbon capture isn’t the solution to “the looming climate crisis.” She criticized the use of tax dollars to developing the industry.
President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act would extend the 45Q Credit to carbon oxide sequestration projects that begin construction by 2031, giving developers another six years. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocated billions of dollars to carbon capture technology and storage programs through the Department of Energy, a Holland & Hart LLP article on JDSupra summarized.
The programs include creating four regional direct air capture hubs that could capture and sequester at least 1 million tons of CO2 annually from the atmosphere. A Carbon Dioxide Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation program provides $2.1 billion in low-interest loans to large CO2 pipeline projects and financing for up to 80% of the costs.
The Nature Conservancy in Minnesota urged the Senate to invest in carbon sequestration and climate resilience through the Build Back Better Act in a tweet Tuesday.
Summit Carbon Solutions announced Wednesday that it has begun drilling stratigraphic test wells in North Dakota and has secured most of the pore space it needs to develop “the largest carbon storage hub in the world” through long-term leases with landowners. It has also received state and local permits to collect seismic data, which it will use to create a model on which to base simulation, design and permitting of CO2 storage facilities.
Clean Up the River Environment is petitioning the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board to order an Environmental Assessment Worksheet for the pipeline.
