BISMARCK, N.D. — A company on Friday said it would cancel its plans for a 1,300-mile (2,092-kilometer) pipeline across five Midwestern states that would have gathered carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol plants and buried the gas deep underground.
Navigator CO2 Ventures’ Heartland Greenway project is among a handful of similar ventures supported by the renewable fuels industry and farming organizations, but opposed by many landowners and environmental groups who question their safety and effectiveness in reducing climate-warming gases.
In a written statement, the company said the “unpredictable nature of the regulatory and government processes involved, particularly in South Dakota and Iowa” were key to the decision to cancel the project.
Navigator’s pipeline would have carried planet-warming CO2 emissions from more than 20 plants across Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota for permanent storage deep underground in Illinois.
Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Executive Director Monte Shaw said carbon capture projects are “the best way to align ethanol production with the increasing demand for low carbon fuels both at home and abroad.” The association saw the Navigator pipeline as an opportunity to open up markets for sustainable aviation fuel for ethanol producers, spokeswoman Emma Koehler told The Associated Press.
“It is not an overstatement to say that decisions made over the