Clinton, Iowa - An infrastructure company proposed to build a 1,300-mile-long carbon capture pipeline that passes through five states, including Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, and South Dakota. 900 miles will pass through 36 counties in Iowa. 

Navigator CO₂ Ventures refers to the piping system as "Heartland Greenway." 

It captures carbon dioxide from the air, converts it into a liquid, and stores it underground at least a mile deep in an isolation point in Christian County, Illinois. 

"It ultimately remains in the liquid phase, where it is injected into the ground, mineralized over thousands of years and became part of the formation of rock and sandstorms in south-central Illinois," Elizabeth Burns-Thompson said. Vice President of Government and Public Affairs at Navigator.  

Representatives from Navigator and the Iowa Public Utilities Commission will now convene 37 meetings through mid-January to share information with landowners and answer any questions they may have. On Tuesday, December 7, they met with hundreds of Clinton County residents.

The landowners received a letter from the company inviting them to participate in the information conference.

"Based on our positive observations in extracting all these publicly available data sets, avoiding population centers, avoiding sensitive and protected land, and following existing easements, we have pointed out a corridor that is about half a mile wide. Probably more," Burns Thompson said. "Then in that corridor, we can go to the next step and work with the landowner to determine what the final route will look like?"

"It sounds like you, as a private company, have found customers you want to provide services for," resident Mike Ossian said in a public Q&A section. "In order to provide services, you need to run pipelines through my property and other properties here. I don't understand how this is good for myself or my neighbors, or the general public."

The carbon capture pipeline will collect carbon dioxide from 20 receiving points at ethanol plants and fertilizer processors. These facilities will pay Navigator to store carbon dioxide. Burns-Thompson said this will help them reduce their carbon footprint and allow them to sell ethanol in states that require a smaller carbon footprint, such as California.

"Carbon capture and storage has the potential to reduce the carbon intensity of products, ethanol or fertilizers by as much as 50%. This is a major development," Burns-Thompson said. 

According to Navigator, more than 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide are emitted into the air every year. Heartland Greenway will be able to transport and quarantine up to 10 million metric tons in the first year and expand to 15 million metric tons per year. This is the ability to capture and store the equivalent of 3.2 million cars' emissions, the carbon dioxide sequestered by 18.3 million acres of American forests, and the ability to eliminate more than three times the entire carbon footprint of the Des Moines metropolitan area. 

Participating facilities will be eligible for a federal tax credit of up to $50 per metric ton of stored carbon. Emissions reduction facilities may also achieve a premium in the low-carbon fuel standard market, resulting in an increase of 20-40 cents in value per gallon and an increase in annual revenue of each plant by US$20-40 million. 

Ardith Barr also received a letter from Navigator. She owns nearly 300 acres of farmland between Dewitt and Low Moor. 

Barr said: "I have never had such an experience before." "One of my concerns is that if they extract toxic substances from the air and pump them into the ground, then if it leaks, if it is close to where you live. What to do? How will it affect us?"

Navigator stated that the law requires the pipeline to be no more than 25 feet away from someone's home. It will operate at least 5 feet deep and below any other existing infrastructure, such as natural gas pipelines, to mitigate any potential line impact. 

According to Burns-Thompson, at the storage site in south-central Illinois, injection wells stored it more than a mile below the water. These wells will use the Simon Mountain formation.

Burns-Thompson said: "The uniqueness of this formation is that it has hundreds of feet of caprock, which effectively acts as a seal to ensure that carbon dioxide does not return from where you placed it." "Not only There is the injection well itself, and many other wells related to it are dedicated to monitoring purposes to ensure that once the carbon dioxide enters the ground, it does not leave where we placed it."

Another conference will be held at LOFT Events at 416 Jefferson Street in Burlington at noon on December 8. 

The Iowa Public Utilities Commission will hold a virtual meeting at 5:30 pm on January 19th. Detailed information and virtual registration information will be posted on the IUB's online hearing conference calendar. 

In Illinois, Knoxville/Henry County residents will meet at the Knoxville American Corps at 749 Henderson Road, Knoxville, at 10:00 AM on January 11.

Navigator expects to apply for permission after completing all public meetings in early 2022. The company hopes to start construction in 2024 and bring the pipeline online in 2025. 

Throughout the licensing process, it will work with five state agencies, such as the Iowa Public Utilities Commission, local entities, and federal environmental agencies. 

According to Navigator, there are plans to build more than 30 carbon capture and storage facilities in the United States and around the world. Existing and proposed projects can reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by nearly one-fifth and reduce the cost of combating climate change by 70%.

For more information on the "Heartland Greenway" carbon capture pipeline, click here. 

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