DES MOINES, Iowa — Another carbon dioxide pipeline is coming to the Hawkeye state, this time being led by Navigator CO2 Ventures. The 1,300-mile pipeline plan brings about 80% of the proposed Heartland Greenway through Iowa.
The pipeline will travel through five states before the CO2 is permanently sequestered underground in south-central Illinois.
Ethanol refineries and fertilizer plants will be the primary source of emissions that the pipeline will take and store permanently over a mile beneath the Earth's surface.
Carbon capture is not a new method, but it hasn't been used on this scale in Iowa before. It's a necessary step, Navigator says, in achieving decarbonization in the coming years.
"The biofuels of today won't be the same as the biofuels of 10 years from now. But what I what we do anticipate is that liquid fuels are still going to be part of the transportation system for the foreseeable future, so we need to be doing as much as we can to begin to decarbonize even further," said Elizabeth Burns-Thompson, Navigator's vice president of government of public affairs.
The project is in its early stages, and won't be operational for at least three more years.
WATCH | Comparing Iowa's 2 proposed carbon pipelines