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POET signs on to transport carbon with Navigator CO2 pipeline project

The world’s largest biofuel producer says it has reached an agreement to transport carbon from 18 of its Midwestern plants starting in 2025.

POET President Jeff Lautt tells Brownfield capturing and storing carbon dioxide accelerates the company’s path to net-zero emissions. “This is just going to further reduce the carbon intensity of bioethanol, therefore, making us that much more viable well into the future and that much more sought after.  That should drive sustainability back to the farmers as well as value back to the farmers.”

Elizabeth Thompson-Burns, vice president of government and public affairs with Navigator CO2, tells Brownfield the pipeline will help producers reduce their carbon footprint. “All of the activity that farmers are doing on their farm to reduce their carbon score associated with the feed stocks and the crops their growing or anything that they’re bringing to the market.  That’s partnered along with the technology upgrades that these processors are doing through carbon capture.“

And, she says, the project will help ethanol plants diversify their products. “We’re able to help these processors be able to manage their carbon and then be able to create a value stream for that as well. And, providing a valuable sector not only for that CO2 but also improving the product that they’re producing at these facilities.”

Navigator’s proposed 1,300-mile pipeline, the Heartland Greenway System, will sequester carbon near Decatur, Illinois.

Jeff Lautt, president with POET:

Elizabeth Thompson-Burns, vice president of government and public affairs with Navigator CO2: