The Heartland Greenway CO2 carbon capture pipeline has officially been canceled.
Navigator CO2 announced this morning in a press release that they have officially canceled the Heartland Greenway project completely, citing that development of the project has been “challenging” and due to the “unpredictable nature of the regulatory and government processes involved” in getting the permits to build the reported $3.5 billion, 1,300-mile project.
South Dakota regulators denied a permit to the Omaha-based company in September and the company pulled its citing application from the Illinois Commerce Commission twice due to not having easements along its right of way along with other concerns from county governments who had put moratoriums on the building of Carbon Dioxide sequestration projects until federal regulations were updated. The company also asked to pause its permit in Iowa last month.
Navigator reached an agreement with Poet, the world’s largest ethanol producer, to capture carbon dioxide emissions from 18 of its plants in Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota, where the biofuels company’s headquarters is located. Navigator also had an agreement to capture carbon emissions from the Iowa Fertilizer Co. in southeast Iowa to sequester their omissions underground near Taylorville and another location in Montgomery County. According to Reuters, Poet has not responded to requests for comment.
The pipeline projects have sparked widespread opposition, with landowners, residents, and politicians concerned about the safety and impact on farmland and underground drainage tiles of the pipelines. Above all, there have been strong objections to Navigator’s use of eminent domain to force unwilling landowners to sell them access to their property for the projects.