If you dug thousands of feet beneath North Dakota, you might find nothing but rocks. But oil tycoon Harold Hamm sees something more: the perfect place to store carbon dioxide (CO2).
The CO2 in question comes from ethanol plants. The massive facilities turn starchy crops like corn into valuable ethanol. Ethanol helps companies create medicines, cosmetics, and plastics. It’s often added to gasoline too.
But ethanol plants produce more than just ethanol. They also create air pollution—carbon dioxide. Ethanol-makers face growing pressure from governments and environmental activists to cut down on the carbon.
The latest solution: pump it underground.
According to geologists, the rock formations deep beneath North Dakota offer a safe place to store carbon. To do so, ethanol plants use a process called “carbon capture.” But then those plants need a pipeline to carry the carbon to North Dakota.
Summit Carbon Solutions plans to build a 2,000-mile pipeline across Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. When finished, this pipeline will collect pollution from 31 ethanol plants, capturing 12 million metric tons of CO2 per year. That’s the same amount of carbon produced by 2.6 million cars.
The catch? This pipeline will cost $4.5 billion.
Enter Harold Hamm, founder of oil drilling company Continental Resources. He announced that his company would invest $250 million in this groundbreaking pipeline. Oil companies such as Continental Resources also face pressure to reduce air pollution.
“We feel it’s the right thing to do at the right time,” says Mr. Hamm. “Carbon capture and storage is going to be more and more important every day as we go forward in America.”
But not everyone agrees. Some worry about what would happen if the pipeline springs a leak. Could those chemicals seep into local drinking water? Some environmental activists don’t think the project goes far enough. They want companies to stop producing carbon altogether.
Also, where does Summit Carbon Solutions plan to find the land for the states-long pipeline? The pipeline must cross miles of private property.
Summit can pay property owners for easements. Easements give someone the legal right to use your property. But what if property owners don’t want to sell those rights?
That’s when big businesses like Summit ask the government for help. The government can use a power called eminent domain to force property owners to sell land rights. Those property owners don’t always agree on the price.
Summit plans to start running the new pipeline in 2024.
Why? It’s good for big companies to act responsibly toward the world God created. But sometimes solutions to pollution create their own problems.
