Illinois State Geological Survey principal scientist Sallie Greenberg showcases a liquid carbon dioxide injection well located near ADM’s ethanol facility in Decatur. (Photo by Timothy Eggert)
From left, Wolf Carbon Solutions senior vice president of corporate development Nick Noppinger; Wolf president David Schmunk; Illinois State Geological Survey director of energy and materials Steven Whittaker; ISGS principal scientist Sallie Greenberg; ADM director of biofuels development Scott McDonald; ADM vice president of innovation Colin Graves. (Photo by Timothy Eggert)
Illinois State Geological Survey principal scientist Sallie Greenberg showcases a liquid carbon dioxide injection well located near ADM’s ethanol facility in Decatur. (Photo by Timothy Eggert)
From left, Wolf Carbon Solutions senior vice president of corporate development Nick Noppinger; Wolf president David Schmunk; Illinois State Geological Survey director of energy and materials Steven Whittaker; ISGS principal scientist Sallie Greenberg; ADM director of biofuels development Scott McDonald; ADM vice president of innovation Colin Graves. (Photo by Timothy Eggert)
In an open field about a mile west of Lake Decatur, a small songbird perches on a tangle of above-ground pipes, valves and tanks.
Little does it know: 3,000 metric tons (mt) of liquified carbon dioxide (CO2) is being injected into a massive geological formation 1.5 miles below its feet.
It’s there, and at another nearby site, that Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. (ADM) and the Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS) have permanently sequestered a total of 3.65 million mt of CO2 produced by its Decatur ethanol facility.
An initial injection well deposited a million mt of CO2 from 2011 to 2014, while a second well, online since 2017, has so far put 2.65 million mt deep into the ground.
“What we’ve managed to do in Illinois is leverage what we know about the geology and demonstrate the full operational aspects of carbon capture and storage here at ADM,” Sallie Greenberg, ISGS principal scientist, said during a recent tour attended by FarmWeek. “And we’re extrapolating that for other projects around the state.”
Armed with a decade of data and the equipment to capture, compress and store its own carbon emissions, ADM is now seeking to expand its CCS venture.
The company recently announced it’s partnering with Wolf Carbon Solutions LLC — a firm that has operations in both Canada and the United States — to build and operate a 260-mile pipeline to transport up to 12 million mt of liquid CO2 from Iowa to central Illinois each year.
“This area of Illinois has been a leader, a pioneer in energy transition because you guys have been doing it for over 10 years with the ADM sites,” Nick Noppinger, Wolf senior vice president of corporate development, said during a recent presentation at the National Carbon Sequestration Education Center.
“What this project is looking to do is further strengthen the Midwest position as a pioneer in energy transition and CO2 reduction,” Noppinger said. “It’s really going to put a positive spotlight on this area for many decades.”
The pipeline, which doesn’t yet have a name, a final route, or approval from federal and state regulators, would each year move 5 to 6 million mt of CO2 emitted by both ADM’s Cedar Rapids and Clinton, Iowa ethanol plants to the same sites that deposit CO2 from the Decatur plant.
A preliminary map shared by Wolf shows the pipeline entering Illinois from Iowa near the Quad Cities, passing south of Peoria then angling southeast. The route appears to cut through Logan County and across DeWitt County before terminating in Macon County.
The ADM-Wolf pipeline would feature 8 to 24-inch “heavy wall, steel pipe” buried underground with “automated surface block valves” stationed at various points along its path.
Deposit of the CO2 into the Illinois Basin, a region spanning most of Illinois that has underground sandstone rock formations ideal for storing, would take place in Decatur via injection wells.
Those wells, according to ILGS scientists, would be accompanied by a series of so-called monitoring wells — deep bores hosting technology like sensors that can detect real-time changes to injection rates and geological characteristics.
If all is approved by regulators, construction of the pipeline could begin within the next two years, with the system fully operational by 2025.
Like other sequestration projects currently being proposed, farmers and landowners need to be involved in the process, ask questions and work to ensure they have good terms in easements or land-use agreements, said Bill Bodine, Illinois Farm Bureau director of business and regulatory affairs.
“I encourage landowners to seek out education and the advice of an experienced attorney before agreeing to anything,” Bodine said. “These are long-term agreements that can have long-term impacts.”
IFB will continue to track the permitting and construction phases of the project. Members who need assistance should contact their County Farm Bureau, Bodine added.
At the core of the project between ADM and Wolf is a gamble: once the pipeline is built, more industrial emitters will build their facilities near it and pay to supply their own carbon dioxide.
The plan is largely a reversal of how other CO2 pipelines have been designed — firms tailor their projects and target existing facilities for capturing, compressing and transporting those facilities’ emissions.
“We’re oversizing our system in anticipation of companies building new plants right next to that line,” Noppinger said, noting Wolf has received “a number of inbound calls” from companies since announcing the partnership with ADM.
Wolf found success in that model with a 150-mile pipeline in Canada that started with CO2 contributions from a Nutrien ammonia fertilizer plant and a refinery, and will soon add a net-zero plastic Dow Chemical facility and a blue-hydrogen power plant.
“Once you have the infrastructure in place, you can expect other industrial customers all around your pipeline to be encouraged — it makes it a lot easier to connect in and capture their CO2 and connect into your system,” Wolf president David Schmunk said.
But the initial focus on ethanol and fertilizer plants stems from it being cheaper to capture CO2 from those facilities because their production processes produce a 95 to 100% pure CO2 byproduct, Noppinger said.
Future phases of the project include lengthening it north toward Chicago and east into Indiana and the Ohio River Valley, where oil and gas, cement and other industries release more diluted carbon emissions, he added.
“Our plan over the long-term is to work with capture facilities to decarbonize industries that our economy needs, and prepare them for the next 20 to 30 years,” Noppinger said.
Three Big River ethanol facilities would add 1 million metric tons of CO2 per year to the pipeline.
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