According to the USDA, corn production in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota alone provides a total value of nearly $38 billion. (Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota)

Summit Carbon Solutions will allow its ethanol plant partners to sell their product at a premium in low carbon fuel standard markets, which will bring dollars back to local communities and shareholders in the Midwest. 

Low carbon fuel markets are expanding. California, the largest ethanol consuming state, and Canada, the largest U.S. ethanol export partner, have both adopted low carbon fuel standards that pay more for lower carbon fuels. 

Almost all gasoline-fueled vehicles on the road today can use ethanol blends (E10, E15, or E85). Furthermore, unlike EVs, the infrastructure for ethanol fuels already exists throughout the country.

By purchasing half of the corn grown in U.S., the ethanol industry helps maintain strong commodity prices and strong land values. 

Opponents of carbon capture and storage projects have gone on the record advocating for the elimination of the ethanol industry. 

• • Sierra Club:

“Sierra Club believes that the use of ethanol serves to extend our reliance on fossil fuels, thus contributing to climate change.” (Source: See here)  

“[Carbon capture and storage] will extend the life of the polluting ethanol industry and industrial agriculture practices that have contributed to our climate crisis, water pollution and more.” (Source: See here)

• • Food and Water Watch:

“Summit also asserts that its project will enhance the long-term viability of the ethanol industry, despite the ethanol industry’s tremendous harms to biodiversity due to intensive monocultural (corn only) production” (Source: See here) 

Summit Carbon Solutions remains committed to negotiating voluntary easements with landowners. Currently, approximately 1,300 landowners across the Midwest have signed voluntary easements with Summit Carbon Solutions. These voluntary agreements account for 2,100 total tracts of land and more are being signed every day. 

Summit Carbon Solutions project will be good for our environment. This carbon capture and storage project will have the capacity to prevent the release of 12 million metric tons of CO2 to the atmosphere every year, or the equivalent of removing the annual CO2 emissions of 2.6 million vehicles from our roads.