Summit Carbon Pipeline Not As Good a Climate Solution as Solar Power and Electric Cars

Summit Carbon Solutions is trying to rebound from the Public Utilities Commission’s stunning rejection of Summit’s carbon-sequestration pipeline with a redoubled charm campaign. Summit CEO Lee Blank and COO James Powell took to SDPB yesterday to peddle their corporate propaganda.

Among other things, the Summit honchos claimed that carbon sequestration will reduce carbon emissions more effectively than using renewable energy. It may be that if you are committed to burning corn to make ethanol, capturing the carbon and piping it to caves in North Dakota is the surest way to cut down your contribution to global warming.

But if you are committed to reducing carbon emissions, hooking a CO2 pipeline up to your ethanol plant won’t do as much to fight global warming as shutting down your ethanol plant and putting up solar panels to power electric cars. Not only do solar panels, and electric cars emit zero carbon dioxide, but solar power produces more power per acre than corn ethanol:

A comparison of the energy yield of corn vs. solar shows why displacing ethanol with solar energy would be a welcome change.  An acre of corn yields 328 gallons of ethanol, which is one-third less efficient than gasoline. If you could run an internal combustion automobile entirely on ethanol (you can’t), a car averaging 40 miles per gallon could go 8,738 miles on an acre of corn.

But that same acre “planted” in solar panels would yield 394-447 MWh per year of electricity. Even at the low end, that’s enough to power a Tesla Model 3 for over 100,000 miles [Ivy Main, “A Bright Spot at the Intersection of Farming, Electric Vehicles, and Solar Energy,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2023.09.30].

It’s also easier and often more profitable for farmers to grow sunshine than corn:

Solar is also a more reliable crop, and a better one for small farmers. The profitability of corn growing varies by state and by year, but it is never exactly a lucrative business for any but the largest farm operations. In a good year, such as 2022, corn might return a profit of $450 per acre, minus land rents (or taxes). In a down year, returns can be negative once land costs are accounted for. (Rents vary considerably, averaging about $325 per acre.)

Meanwhile, solar lease rates range from $250 to $2000 per acre, depending on location and suitability. A guaranteed payment for 20 or 30 years with no work involved is a pretty attractive deal. Even putting just a portion of a farm into solar provides a form of insurance, guaranteeing a steady income flow regardless of weather and commodity price swings [Main, 2023.09.30].

Summit’s chiefs are stumping for a pipeline that would only reduce carbon emissions at the fuel-processing facility, not in corn production or at the tailpipes of all those vehicles burning ethanol. Their pipeline itself, like corn ethanol production, takes up more land and more water than solar installations able to yield comparable power.

Don’t fall for Summit’s snake-charmers. Capturing carbon dioxide isn’t a bad idea, but it’s far from the best idea for using South Dakota resources to power America and save the planet.