The Navigator CCS announcement is extraordinary in its boldness and potential lack of any real chance of economic success. The idea of building 1200 miles of high-pressure CO2 pipe (See exhibit below) to collect small volumes from corn-based ethanol producers and potentially have multiple sequestration sites is extremely expensive and would not begin to be covered by the 45Q tax credit, which would easily be consumed by the compression and pipeline costs alone. If some of the ethanol is making it into the LCFS markets, each ethanol producer that has some material heading that way will want a piece of the pie and if each had to jointly file with CARB, with Navigator, for what would be small portions of the overall ethanol output, the administration might be overwhelming, as would be a chain of custody process which satisfies CARB. Navigator is not an altruist fund and consequently, must see a way to make a return on the idea. This may be based on the hope that LCFS or something like it will spread to other states.
Source: Navigator CO2 Ventures, June 2021
There are lots of projects focused on capturing the corn ethanol-based carbon dioxide and the focus is there because the CO2 streams are pure and require minimal clean-up. But the volumes are small and Navigator is talking about a maximum of 12 million tons a year – requiring 1200 miles of pipe. We are looking at one project in Louisiana that could probably do twice that volume per annum (or more) and require less than 100 miles of pipe. The focus needs to be on lowering the cost of capture and separation rather than gathering the easy streams, and they barely move the emissions needle.