Navigator Cancels Proposed Midwestern CO2 Pipeline, Citing ‘Unpredictable’ Regulatory Processes

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — 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 many landowners and environmental groups oppose the pipelines and 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,” and are essential “to unlocking the 100-billion-gallon sustainable aviation fuel market for agriculture, in the long term.”

“It is not an overstatement to say that decisions made over the next few months will likely place agriculture on one of two paths. One would lead to 1990s stagnation as corn production exceeds demand, and the other opens new market opportunities larger than anything we’ve ever seen before,” he said in a statement.

Pipeline opponents welcomed Navigator’s announcement Friday.

“Everyone said we have no chance against foreign-backed, multibillion-dollar hazardous pipelines but when hundreds of landowners band together with a unified legal strategy, we can win,” said Brian Jorde, an Omaha-based attorney who represents many landowners opposed to Midwestern pipeline projects.

Regulatory panels in North Dakota and South Dakota dealt blows to Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed $5.5 billion, 2,000-mile (3,219-kilometer) interstate pipeline network. The system would carry CO2 emissions from more than 30 ethanol plants in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, to be buried deep underground in central North Dakota.

Iowa regulators this month suspended a weekslong hearing for Summit’s project, set to resume next month. Minnesota regulators are proceeding with an environmental review for a small part of Summit’s project.

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