BISMARCK, N.D. — The North Dakota Industrial Commission voted on Thursday, Dec. 12, to allow millions of tons of carbon dioxide to be transported by pipeline and permanently stored underground northwest of Bismarck.

However, the project is still in limbo while other states decide whether to approve permits necessary to start construction.

Gov. Doug Burgum, who will be succeeded by Gov.-elect Kelly Armstrong in less than three days, Attorney General Drew Wrigley and Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring make up the Industrial Commission.

“These sequestration permits are the result of years of rigorous scientific study, engineering design and input from regulators, landowners and local leaders,” Wade Boeshans, vice president of Summit Carbon Solutions, said in a Thursday release.

The pipeline

Summit Carbon Solutions’ more than $8 billion pipeline is the first project of its kind, particularly due to the vast distance between carbon sites and three massive storage wells in western North Dakota.

Over 2,500 miles of pipeline would traverse through five states and carry liquid CO2 — the carbon byproduct in ethanol fermentation — from 57 ethanol facilities to be injected into three underground storage sites in Oliver and Morton County.

Additional states involved are South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska. North Dakota is the landing point for the CO2 and the only state that would permanently host the substance.

The company still has to attain permits from South Dakota after its application was denied in 2023. Nebraska does not have a state-level process for regulating such projects, but some counties have individually rejected Summit’s applications.

Route permits have been approved in Iowa and North Dakota. Minnesota utility regulators also unanimously permitted its 28-mile portion of the pipeline route Thursday.

The opposition

The North Dakota Public Service Commission opted to permit route construction in November, cautioning Summit to avoid turning to eminent domain, which is the government’s right to take private property for public use, to begin building. Summit would have to go through the courts to wield eminent domain.

“Occasionally, it’s (eminent domain) needed,” Commission Chair Randy Christmann said during the November hearing. “But I damn sure understand it ought never be abused.”

In North Dakota, various opposing groups have coalesced in seeking legal action to halt the project. Those groups include private landowners, the Northwest Land Owners Association, the Dakota Resource Council and individual counties.

Opponents say their land and their rights to control it are under threat. They worry insurers will flee, property values will decrease, farmland will be destroyed and their safety is at risk.

“While not surprising, given Governor Burgum’s outspoken support for carbon capture and sequestration, this decision will only cause the opposition to Summit’s risky project to dig in their heels,” Dakota Resource Council Executive Director Scott Skokos said in response to Thursday’s decision. “Even Summit has stated that they cannot know the impacts of carbon dumping until they do them.”

According to state geologist Richard Suggs, there are over 450 landowners around the proposed storage areas.

Bismarck attorney Derrick Braaten is representing landowners whose pore space is “being taken without their consent” and is in the process of appealing Thursday’s decision.

The law

The appeal to the storage permits will challenge how state law authorizes the Industrial Commission to permit pore space and additionally will challenge the state’s amalgamation laws — laws that can force landowners to store the CO2 if 60% of the landowners have signed leases — as unconstitutional.

An additional appeal against the Public Service Commission’s November decision to approve the route permit is already pending, according to Braaten.

“We need to have the right to fully flesh out how it (leasing pore spaces) is compensated,” he said.

Burleigh County is at a voluntary easement rate of 66%, according to Summit. Still, 82% of people who own land on the entire proposed route have agreed to construction.

Since the CO2 storage takes place in North Dakota, Summit must also lease pore space — the void space in rocks where the CO2 would be stored — from landowners in addition to obtaining voluntary easements for the pipeline route itself.

Around 92% of the pore space leases have been secured, according to Summit.

The ethanol industry

The pipeline is being built to boost the Midwestern ethanol industry and provide “new market opportunities” in its production process — namely by making ethanol fuel more economically feasible in advancing sustainable aviation, according to Summit’s website.

Summit would receive a $85 tax credit for each metric ton of sequestered CO2. The three wells would hold approximately 325 million tons of CO2 over 20 years. The pipeline would transport as much as 18 million tons yearly, according to Summit’s storage application.

North Dakota was chosen for storage because of available pore space found in rocks more than a mile under the land’s surface. The prime underlying geology allows for CO2 to be stowed into a porous, sponge-like rock layer and confined by the less porous rock above.

If Summit can obtain the necessary permits from the other states involved, the project would begin in 2026 and become operational in 2027.