KELOland: Pipeline opponents may cost South Dakota jet fuel plant said to be largest economic investment in the state’s history

The head of proposed billion dollar sustainable jet fuel plant near Lake Preston noted in a KELOland interview today that they may have to pick up and go elsewhere unless attitudes change for carbon sequestration in South Dakota:

South Dakota could lose its largest proposed economic development project if the carbon dioxide sequestration landscape doesn’t change, Gevo’s chief executive officer said this week.

“If we don’t have resolution, say, in six months, I think I better move to another state. That’s what I think. I need to have a line of sight that it’s gonna happen for real,” Dr. Patrick Gruber, the CEO of Gevo, said Monday in KELOLAND News interview.

and..

But it’s unlikely that investment will happen without a carbon dioxide pipeline that will transport captured CO2 for sequestration, Gruber said.

Producing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from carbohydrates, via ethanol, is the most cost effective way and it also has the lowest carbon footprint, Gruber said.

and..

CO2 pipelines and sequestration have met resistance in South Dakota, but it’s part of the future of carbon abatement and renewable and sustainable fuel, he said.

Read the entire interview here at KELOland.com

The question is less about pipelines, and whether people – and elected officials – actually support ethanol and other agriculture derived fuel products.

More and more fuel and ethanol markets are demanding a carbon neutral footprint.

Either South Dakota wants to compete on a world market, or we can fail our local ag producers.

21 thoughts on “KELOland: Pipeline opponents may cost South Dakota jet fuel plant said to be largest economic investment in the state’s history”

  1. Amen- when will we wake up and realize that there is a carbon market and it directly affects the ag economy? Either we help ethanol decarbonize or say goodbye to the largest purchaser of corn in South Dakota.

  2. Sad thing is if we don’t embrace carbon mitigation is that 20-30 years down the road every single individual who dug their heels in and helped kill ethanol in this state will either be dead (thanks boomers) or too dumb to realize that they doomed our small towns and many family owned farms.

    1. Agreed. If the major purchasing segment of your market wants it manufactured in a certain way, you can refuse, and watch your market dry up and eventually die, or convert and modernize.

      I’m not sure why there are those who insist on killing the manufacturers, as well as making sure the people who supply their raw product go bankrupt as well.

      1. Honestly it’s because they’re almost giddy in their ignorance. Opposing the pipelines and sequestration is standing against climate change and therefore, is a way of “owning the libs”. They think that if Trump is re-elected that all of this “climate hoax” just magically go away.

        But they’re dead wrong. Even if Trump wins, Blue States will dictate that any ethanol sold there must utilize carbon mitigation tech. As will Canada and the rest of the developed international market, because Climate Change is not a hoax, and should be taken quite seriously. Something that our far right wing can’t do even if they tried.

  3. 1 Billion Dollars isn’t really that impressive when weighed against the loss of water that South Dakotans will face as the aquifer gets wiped out just so some celebrity out in California can fill their G-6 Global.

    1. Loss isn’t the project investment, it’s the loss of the ethanol industry and resulting implosion of corn prices. Want $2.5 corn back? Even two bucks less a bushel off today’s low price times 800 million bushels harvested in SD every year is a couple billion loss a year, every year. It’ll make the early 80’s farm crisis look like a blip.

    1. Since when did the party that created National Parks, Wilderness reserves, and the EPA surrender environmental advocacy as a left wing virtue?

    2. Considering pipeline opponents have regular zoom strategy calls with the Sierra Club, I think you’re looking at the wrong side as being aligned with the left.

  4. No one is trying to kill small towns. We’re trying to give small towns and rural communities a voice. The permit applications so far have been requests to “big foot” the process by state officials to override any local ordinances that these companies don’t like. I don’t care if we get our energy from oil, corn, or hamster wheel. We all use a lot of energy and we’re using more. There is NO reasonable path to an energy system without carbon and fossil fuels, and there is NO reasonable model that suggests carbon capture in the Midwest will have any meaningful impact on climate change. If liberals want to pay for it and lands owners and small towns in SD want to sell it, great. That’s their business. I don’t care. But don’t smash small towns and rural communities with new state regs and eminent domain when they clearly don’t want it.

  5. Most of the opposition revolves around eminent domain. It is not opposition to ethanol. It is opposition to the forced taking of land ownership rights.

      1. anonymous at 12:44, it’s eminent domain for private gain just like railroads, telecommunications, natural gas, oil, water, & electricity. Actually having these things run under one’s home is less disturbing than all the aircraft flying over it.
        Drift spray from small planes flying in low to spray crops is the bane of horticulturists and bee keepers, there is widespread concern about condensation trails from jet engines, and if you live near the airport, there’s a lot of noise. Property owners have no rights to the airspace above their homes, and this is annoying, so they focus their attention on what’s underground. Don’t look up!

  6. Why won’t the land owners willingly give up their land? Everyone was so supportive of the pipeline in ND, but as soon as it comes to their backyard, they don’t want it now. Weird….

      1. Not really. This opposition is primarily private land owners. Oil pipeline opposition was primarily environmental and tribal opposition.

        1. Oh, so the reason for opposition is what makes the difference, I see. So, if you want to oppose due to greed, spite, “nimbyism”, that is okay. If you want to oppose because you are concerned about environmental risks, or if you are from a different culture (tribal), then you are the enemy and should not be considered.

          Is this the standard GOP logic used everywhere? I feel like if I am doing the work to sell the pipeline like this, I should be paid with those “lobbying” dollars too. Whoa, that could be another whole angle, maybe they could pay the land owners for a land through negotiations, instead of trying to get the government to force their business model on the people through a land taking. However, this doesn’t seem fascist enough, too much capitalism, which is soon to be associated with the “libs” anyway.

          1. get real about the protest at Standing Rock; the tribe was against it because it wasn’t going through tribal land as originally proposed. The tribe wanted more money than was offerred, so the pipeline route was changed to go around them. That’s what they were angry about, they werent going to get the money.

            Current anti-pipeline protests are being led by populist politicians whose election-denying and anti-vaccine campaigns didn’t get enough traction so they jumped on the anti-carbon pipeline hysteria.
            It’ll be something else next year.

  7. I am sick and tired of people who “win” by changing the rules (moving the goalposts).

    Aren’t you?

    Are we going to see another Standing Rock, here?

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