Gov. Reynolds at 2023 Iowa RFA Summit
“It’s happening. Nebraska is doing it. North Dakota is doing it. Indiana is doing it. Illinois projects are moving forward. Brazil is doing it big time. It’s happening,” said Iowa Renewable Fuels Association (IRFA) Executive Director Monte Shaw during a press call on the subject last week. “This is not whether or not CCS is going to happen. The question here is whether or not Iowa is going to be left behind and for that reason we also would urge a veto.”
“We have to look at long term survivability of the corn industry. And right now, we’re not doing that with this legislation,” said Iowa corn grower Vic Miller.
Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy (SIRE) CEO Mike Jerke said they plan to invest $45 million to connect to the Colorado-based Tallgrass Trailblazer CO2 pipeline. “Tallgrass is a company that’s been in the pipeline business for a long time, they operate over 10,000 miles of pipe across the United States,” said Jerke. “These pipelines have every kind of service, from natural gas to petroleum to water. One of their pipelines they had deemed to be redundant and that pipeline happened to go from Wyoming through the state of Nebraska. And so they went through a process to repurpose this pipeline to for CO2 duty and because of where SIRE is located, we were able to strike an agreement with them and hook up to their pipe or that is our intent and expectation.”
Jerke says the Iowa legislation could limit their ability to participate. “This limitation is put specifically only on pipelines that are transporting liquid carbon dioxide. The language limits the permits to 25 years,” he said. “The existing language in statute said the maximum was 25 years, but then the death blow is you cannot renew a permit if you’re transporting liquid liquefied carbon dioxide. We cannot renew it, so we’re making a significant investment.”
Listen to their arguments for the governor to veto the legislation here:
Iowa RFA press call on Carbon Pipeline bill 27:27