A proposed corn-starch-to-jet-fuel plant in South Dakota is on track to get big federal funding, but its feasibility could hinge on election results.
The proposed Lake Preston facility, dubbed Net-Zero 1 by the company Gevo, is set to receive a conditional loan of nearly $1.5 billion from the U.S. Department of Energy.
This comes just before Election Day, when voters will decide on Referred Law 21 - which will determine the future of carbon dioxide transmission pipelines in the state - and which Andrew Swanson, postdoctoral researcher at the University of California Davis, said projects like Net-Zero 1 would rely on.
"They can capture carbon dioxide that's naturally produced from distilling corn into ethanol, put it in a pipeline and send it underground," said Swanson. "And by doing that, that would dramatically reduce the emissions of ethanol."
Those reductions would get companies below federally-set emissions thresholds, triggering high tax credits in return.
Recent campaign finance reports show ethanol producers have contributed $2.7 million in support of the ballot measure, according to reporting from South Dakota Searchlight.
Opponents of the measure, mostly individuals and farm and ranch corporations, have raised just under $250,000.
Net-Zero 1 would support the Biden administration's goal of producing 3 billion gallons of sustainable aviation fuel in the U.S. by 2030.
The world's first ethanol-to-jet-fuel plant opened in Georgia earlier this year and will produce 10 million gallons of fuel per year. Swanson said the industry is still brand new.
"The federal government wants to increase the production by 100-200 fold within six years," said Swanson. "Now, we're kind of just waiting on the edge of our seats a little bit to see what they're going to decide with the carbon pipeline."
According to the Department of Energy, Net-Zero 1 would also make more than 1 billion pounds of animal feed protein and 30 million pounds of corn oil annually, and would create 100 operations jobs.
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With President Joe Biden in Baltimore today to talk about infrastructure and the climate crisis, the state is in the process of finalizing a new set of energy-use goals for large buildings.
Estimates indicate Maryland's buildings account for around a third of the state's greenhouse gas emissions. To reach goals set under the 2022 Climate Solutions Now Act, the Maryland Department of the Environment has developed energy performance standards for buildings 35,000 square feet and larger.
Veronique Bugnion, CEO of the Maryland-based consulting firm ClearlyEnergy, said performance standards are needed to help cities and states reach climate goals.
"Codes and code improvements are great but there's only so many new buildings being built, and there's an awful lot of existing building stock," Bugnion pointed out. "To tackle the emissions of the existing buildings, new tools were required and that's where building performance standards came from."
There are around 9,000 affected buildings across the state.
Starting next year, building owners will begin reporting energy use to the Maryland Department of the Environment. In 2030 buildings will have to begin meeting interim standards with net-zero emissions set to be required in 2040. Exemptions are available for historic buildings and schools among others.
Bugnion noted one of the virtues of performance standards is allowing flexibility for building owners.
"It really doesn't tell them what to do, it tells them what standard to meet and the standards gradually get more stringent over time," Bugnion explained. "So the first couple years, the expectation is buildings will find ways to do some of the obvious things. But over time, the writing is on the wall that as systems age out, they're going to need to replace them with much more efficient systems."
The department anticipates building owners will eventually convert existing heating and cooling systems to high efficiency electric options such as heat pumps. The energy use data reported next year will be used to calculate Energy Use Intensity Standards which are set to be adopted in 2027.
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