From Iowa Public Radio news:

A proposed CO2 pipeline project spanning five states has moved one step closer to reality. The Iowa Utilities Board unanimously approved Summit Carbon Solutions’ application for a permit to construct, operate and maintain a carbon sequestration pipeline through 29 counties in the state. The IUB said Summit met the requirements of Iowa Code and that the “public benefits of the project outweigh the private and public costs.”

To bolster its case, the article quotes Iowa Renewable Fuels Executive Director Monte Shaw: “Whether you think it’s smart or silly, the world’s largest airlines want to decarbonize their fuel. Carbon capture and sequestration gets Iowa ethanol into that market, potentially providing a generational boost to Iowa’s economy.”

Sounds like when our mothers, responding to our youthful desire to do something stupid, would say “so if your neighbor jumps in the lake in the middle of winter, are you going to jump in too?” Understandably, Mr. Shaw acknowledges in so many words that if the government is throwing all this money around, Iowa may as well get its share of the booty.

Last year around this time, the selfsame Summit Carbon Solutions filed 80 similar eminent domain lawsuits against South Dakota farmers.

Aside from the “public benefit” of tapping into (free!) taxpayer money, what manner of legerdemain is required to conclude that the Pros of traversing pipelines through five midwestern states to connect 57 ethanol plants (30 in Iowa) to capture, transport, and ultimately bury the CO2 from those plants in a North Dakota burial ground thousands of feet below the surface, outweigh the Cons, of which there are a few?

To wit:

• Many farmers are incensed at having their private land appropriated and torn up to accommodate the pipelines, and they have vowed to appeal and fight the court orders to the bitter end.
• The underlying assumption that CO2 is an evil, existential threat to the planet is absurd. At a mere 0.042 percent of the atmosphere (420 ppm), CO2 is a trace molecule. Scientists assert that plants require a minimum of 350 ppm to curate (to employ a strangely in-vogue term) the very oxygen we breathe, and that rock formations from prior geologic eras demonstrate that a diverse, thriving biosphere enjoyed a CO2 concentration in the thousands of ppm. Deep ice cores comparing temperature with CO2 levels reveal that CO2 levels trail, not lead, climate change by 100 or more years, and that solar activity, when graphed alongside changes in temperature, provides the best correlation between climate change and any other outside influence.
• The plan requires “capturing” carbon dioxide in liquid-based solvents and materials, which would then be transported through pipelines. A ScienceDirect article titled “Recent advances in carbon dioxide capture and utilization with amines and ionic liquids” discusses the various methods in use and under development, and compares their advantages and disadvantages. Amine solvents such as MEA, MDEA, DEA, AMP, PZ, etc. seem to be most commonly used. Essentially, the tradeoffs are quick absorption and high recycling energy consumption vs slow absorption and lower energy consumption. The downsides to these solvents involve corrosion and toxicity. As the article is focused on the chemistry of these processes, it fails to address any of the associated costs involved, or any degree of possible environmental damage caused by these solvents.

One would be crazy not to believe that these grandiose carbon pipelines will be stupid expensive and potentially hazardous to the environment. This project is likely immersed in a prolonged “research phase” that would extend well past the “implementation phase.”

Inertia, like atrophy, is a powerful force in nature. Barring a tectonic shift in the social and political landscape, Ethanol is Forever; no amount of rational argument can foreseeably cause its demise. The same will be true of this carbon capture mania unless it can be stopped in its tracks. That goal, however, is within reach. Iowa -- a state that prides itself on conservatism -- is at the epicenter of this fight that’s being waged in the midwestern farm states. Iowa’s Republican party controls the offices of the governor, secretary of state, attorney general, as well as both chambers of the state legislature. Surely the state can look after the welfare of its farm communities without succumbing to these divisive, destructive, and utterly pointless monstrosities.

Image: Jeffre Beall