I’ve posted maps of the Iowa and South Dakota portions of the proposed Midwest Carbon Express carbon-capture pipeline that Iowa consultant and South Dakota Republican Dan Lederman is pitching. Now Arielle Zionts shares the full map of the five-state project:
Those spidery lines across the plains offer an interesting lesson in geometry, engineering, and efficiency. The northernmost reach of the main Minnesota spur, the ethanol plant in Granite Falls, is closer to Watertown than to Iowa. Yet the liquefied CO2 from Granite Falls will run all the way down to Iowa and then back up slantwise across South Dakota to Bismarck because it will take less pipe and energy to pump that CO2 down to the next Minnesota ethanol plant in the system and combine it with inputs from four other plants on the line.
Zionts also shares the concerns of Dakota Rural Action, which start with alarm that South Dakota landowners will once again be shafted by a pipeline company’s use of eminent domain to seize land for elsewherians’ private profit:
Dakota Rural Action, a South Dakota-based group, has concerns about the project, said director Frank James.
“The basic problem that we have is that the eminent domain process in South Dakota is so lopsided toward the industry trying to develop that people feel that they are not even represented in the process,” he said.
DRA and its members also have questions about the safety and environmental aspects, James said [Arielle Zionts, “Iowa Company Holds Meetings on Proposed South Dakota Carbon Capture Pipelines,” SDPB Radio, 2021.10.26].
Aspiring Iowa pipeliner Summit Carbon Solutions still hasn’t applied to the Public Utilities Commission for permission to ship carbon dioxide across East River to North Dakota. But stay tuned for Dan Lederman and his corporate cronies to make the Republican case for sacrificing private property rights for the common good.
Well Cory, Over, Under, Sideways Down was always one of my favorite songs.
Because the other media are so darn slow to alert us of these things-another tip to the old tip jar for ya, Cory!
For those who are curious about how CO2 gets changed from a gas to a pipeline liquid…
Liquid carbon dioxide is the liquid state of carbon dioxide (CO 2), which cannot occur under atmospheric pressure. It can only exist at a pressure above 5.1 atm (5.2 bar; 75 psi), under 31.1 °C (88.0 °F) (temperature of critical point) and above −56.6 °C (−69.9 °F) (temperature of triple point). Low-temperature carbon dioxide is commercially used in its solid form, commonly known as “dry ice…
So capturing the CO2 and liquifying it will require – more energy – as will pumping it, and maintaining it in a liquid state within the pipeline, I.E. – create more CO2. Unless, of course, all of the equipment to do so is say – solar powered??
Richard…Solar Power for these kind of industrial uses is neglected but should be applied if we must have these industrial “green planet” solutions to our carbon energy usage. It could happen if it is cheaper to use than a carbon burner…Private business does not object to using solar power solutions if they are cheaper to use…they are engineers not politicians.
It’s really difficult to imagine this contraption sequestering more carbon than it will take to bury all that pipe and build the infrastructure, init?
Arlo – bean counters and not the engineers are those concerned with profitability. Engineers are concerned with reliability, staying within the parameters of function.
I’ve read enough about this to declare it is a boondoggle and a grifter’s delight.
Yesterday, October 27th, The representatives from Summit Carbon Solutions held a secret meeting with Public Utilities Commission staff to promote this scheme. I called the PUC yesterday to object to this meeting and was told by a PUC staffer that no such meeting took place, A phone call to a Summit spokesman confirmed that indeed they had privately met with PUC staff at 8:00 a.m. When I called the PUC staffer again to tell him he had not been truthful to me earlier, he then admitted that the meeting had taken place. I requested from the PUC staff that we affected landowners be given the same opportunity to meet with them now to give our perspective in opposition to this scheme. I was told we could tell our story during permitting hearings and not before. Once again it appears that our PUC has chosen to side with a private developer over our own landowners and has already committed to being a cheerleader for this pipeline. This is an outrage!