Glacial Lakes Energy voices support for carbon pipeline

MINA, S.D. (Dakota News Now) - The Glacial Lakes Energy Plant in Mina held a media day Wednesday to provide information as to why they’re joining Summit Carbon Solutions’ carbon dioxide pipeline project.

State representatives, emergency managers and press gathered at the Mina ethanol plant Wednesday to hear answers to the many questions surrounding the carbon pipeline.

”It’s an opportunity to answer questions about the safety that goes into the engineering, design and operation of a modern pipeline system and really put people at ease and provide them with facts that help folks make an informed decision,” said Summit Carbon Solutions Chief Commercial Officer Jim Piroli.

The pipeline is set to run through nearly 480 miles of South Dakota. The purpose is to capture carbon dioxide from ethanol plants and sequester it underground in North Dakota. This will help reduce the carbon emission footprints of the plants.

The Glacial Lakes Energy ethanol plant in Mina produces 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Joining Summit’s pipeline project could cut those emissions in half.

”Glacial Lakes Energy supports the project. We’ve partnered with Summit now early on and the project is important to us because it presents an opportunity to lower our carbon intensity score to the effect of up to 50%,” said Glacial Lakes Energy Plant CEO Jim Seuer.

That doesn’t mean Glacial Lakes Energy staff haven’t heard concerns from landowners along the pipeline’s route who fear that eminent domain will be utilized.

”I’ve taken dozen and dozen of calls and forwarded on those questions and those concerns to the folks at Summit. We’re very engaged with the landowners at this point,” said Seuer.

The tight carbon fuel standards in Glacial Lakes Energy’s markets, like the Pacific Northwest and Canada, make it hard to pass up the opportunity to stay competitive.

”This isn’t going to go away. It may slow down, depending on the politics in Washington, but it’s not going to go away. The country is moving more and more toward a lower carbon intensity environment,” said Seuer.

Seuer says Glacial Lakes Energy looked into other alternatives to lower emissions, but found that Summit’s pipeline was the best option.

“Folks resists change. We resist change. We’d rather find some other way to lower that score and we’ve tried looking at almost everything there is to look at and had analyses and studies done internally. We just cannot get the bang for the buck that we can get with a partnership with Summit,” said Seuer.

Summit Carbon Solutions staff say that 33% of landowners along the pipeline’s route have signed voluntary easements. Summit plans to break ground on the pipeline in the summer of 2023.