Nestled alongside the curves of the Illinois River simply outdoors the city of Hennepin is the nation’s largest dry-mill ethanol plant, the place a community of pipes, grain elevators and exhaust towers rise like a mini-city. Surrounding the plant are a whole lot of acres of corn, the state’s high crop typically used to make ethanol gas.
The plant’s proprietor, Marquis Vitality, processes 360,000 bushels of corn every day, making it an vital buyer for the state’s almost $21 billion corn trade. A 3rd of Illinois corn is used to make ethanol gas.
Marquis Vitality plans to construct a brand new carbon seize and sequestration challenge — which might bury hundreds of thousands of tons of the ethanol plant’s air air pollution underground — permitting it to develop its ethanol manufacturing and safe profitable federal tax credit.
However the proposal has drawn opposition from some farmers and state lawmakers who fear carbon seize might pollute a close-by aquifer and disturb topsoil as new pipelines are constructed.
Marquis Vitality, together with the state’s corn foyer, has responded with hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in marketing campaign contributions to state lawmakers, an Examine Midwest evaluation has discovered. A few of its largest recipients have pushed for pro-carbon seize insurance policies and opposed new rules.
Final yr, the Illinois Basic Meeting permitted a brief ban on carbon seize initiatives and launched a brand new invoice to ban the follow across the Mahomet Aquifer in Central Illinois, which is the water supply for over half 1,000,000 folks.
Nevertheless, Senate President Don Harmon, an Oak Park Democrat, used his place as a committee chairman to desk the Mahomet Aquifer invoice throughout a November listening to. A number of observers attending the listening to advised Examine Midwest they consider the invoice would have handed if Harmon had allowed for a vote.
Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park.
Since 2021, Harmon has obtained $147,500 from Marquis Vitality, in response to the marketing campaign finance database Illinois Sunshine.
Since 2020, Harmon has additionally obtained $17,500 from the Illinois Corn Affiliation, which additionally opposed the invoice.
A spokesman for the Senate stated Harmon was unaware Marquis Vitality opposed the invoice to guard the Mahomet Aquifer.
“I assist extra safeguards to guard our consuming water and the Mahomet Aquifer particularly,” Harmon stated in a written assertion to Examine Midwest. “Given the moratorium that’s already in place and uncertainty of the brand new federal administration, I feel it is sensible to pause and see what shakes out in D.C., after which think about our choices. Our solely precedence is defending clear consuming water.”
General, Marquis Vitality, a non-public firm, contributed $248,000 to state lawmakers final yr, most of which went to Illinois’ 4 strongest legislative leaders.
However final yr’s contributions are simply the newest in a decade-long effort by Marquis Vitality and its CEO to form coverage on the Illinois statehouse. Since 2008, the corporate has spent $1.2 million on state lawmaker campaigns.
Examine Midwest tried to contact Marquis Vitality by cellphone and electronic mail a number of occasions. A spokesperson for the corporate stated they weren’t focused on commenting presently.
Proponents declare it fights local weather change, expands corn market
Primarily based on know-how initially used to squeeze oil out of almost depleted fields, carbon seize is the method of changing carbon dioxide air pollution into liquid, sending it by means of a pipeline, after which pumping it almost a mile underground.
Marquis Vitality’s particular plans are to inject CO2 over a five-year interval to solely about half a mile underground, in response to the Illinois State Geological Survey.
Carbon seize and sequestration could sometime be thought-about a traditional a part of waste administration, like rubbish elimination or sewage remedy, stated Holly Jean Buck, a local weather politics sociologist on the College at Buffalo in New York.
Some see carbon seize as a solution to local weather change. Storing carbon dioxide emissions underground can forestall the fuel from warming the ambiance.
Silvia Secchi, economist and geographer on the College of Iowa.
Nevertheless, increasing Marquis Vitality’s use of carbon seize, which in flip will increase using ethanol gas, means continued use of the fossil gas trade at a time when Illinois and the federal authorities try to incentivize electrical automobiles as a option to combat local weather change, stated Silvia Secchi, an economist and geographer on the College of Iowa.
“It’s a very massive drawback that we have now basically out of date Huge Ag nonetheless driving local weather mitigation coverage in 2024,” Secchi stated. “It’s very a lot the facility of a foyer in opposition to the facility of science, the best way I see it.”
However state Sen. Sue Rezin, a Republican from Morris, believes carbon seize is required to offset local weather change whereas nonetheless having the ability to meet vitality calls for.
“With a view to cut back our carbon footprint, to realize our targets that have been signed by the state of Illinois, we should have carbon seize; in any other case the numbers merely received’t add up,” she stated.
Rezin has obtained $76,100 from Marquis Vitality since 2011. In 2021 and 2023, she proposed payments to grant the corporate pipeline entry by means of public land alongside the Illinois River. The payments have been unsuccessful.
In a written assertion supplied to Examine Midwest, Rezin said that certainly one of her high priorities as a senator is to advance legal guidelines “that create jobs, assist financial improvement, and assist the industries which are important to Illinois and my district.”
She wrote that the laws she launched “was geared toward increasing alternatives for our state’s agribusiness, using the ethanol trade to its fullest potential, and serving to to scale back our carbon footprint.”
The Illinois Corn Growers Affiliation has supported Marquis Vitality’s carbon seize push, selling it as a option to enhance the marketplace for Illinois corn.
“With the extreme downturn within the ag financial system taking place at the moment, Illinois corn farmers want extra market demand,” stated Brad Stotler, director of public coverage for the Illinois Corn Growers Affiliation.
Marquis Vitality employed 49 folks in 2019, in response to Bloomberg. As a non-public firm, it’s not required to reveal monetary info, comparable to annual income or CEO pay.
Opponents fear about water air pollution, pipeline leaks
Some Illinois farmers fear that buried carbon dioxide might leak into groundwater, which prompted the Illinois Basic Meeting to impose a moratorium on CO2 pipeline development till July 2026, or till the Pipeline and Hazardous Supplies Security Administration comes up with new security requirements.
In March 2024, a leak occurred at certainly one of Archer Daniels Midland’s carbon dioxide wells in Decatur, prompting lawmakers to introduce extra laws prohibiting carbon sequestration exercise over, below or by means of any sole-source aquifers.
That invoice was stalled throughout its November listening to by Harmon, the Senate chief.
Some witnesses on the listening to questioned whether or not the ban was needed.
*Marc Miller, deputy director of the Prairie Analysis Institute on the College of Illinois, which has studied ADM’s carbon dioxide nicely since 2011, stated future initiatives would retailer carbon dioxide greater than a mile underground, whereas the Mahomet Aquifer is simply 500 ft under the floor.
“Thus far, PRI has discovered no proof of damaging impacts from carbon storage to the groundwater provide,” Miller testified throughout the listening to.
However state Sen. Rachel Ventura, a Joliet Democrat, continues to be involved.
Sen. Rachel Ventura, D-Joliet.
“Despite the fact that we have now possibly a limestone shale there, there are cracks in it. Now we have our personal holes for issues like wells and different pipes,” stated Ventura, who co-sponsored the aquifer ban invoice. “So the truth is that the fuel, over time, will come again to the floor.”
Ventura additionally co-sponsored a invoice final legislative session to ban using eminent area for carbon dioxide pipelines. The invoice didn’t cross.
There’s additionally concern about leaks alongside the pipelines transporting carbon dioxide all through the state. Whereas Marquis Vitality’s proposal would sequester its emissions on web site, different proposals from out-of-state firms would require a whole lot of miles of pipelines carrying carbon dioxide to wells in Illinois.
In 2020, a CO2 pipeline burst in Satartia, Mississippi, sending 45 folks to the hospital. Inside minutes, carbon dioxide overwhelmed residents, who collapsed of their houses and outdoor.
The dense fog of CO2 additionally displaced sufficient oxygen to choke automobile engines. Vehicles stalled in the course of the highway as folks tried to evacuate. Some drivers who left their automobiles grew to become disoriented and misplaced, and others misplaced consciousness. There have been no deaths.
Susan Adams operates a corn and soybean farm in southwest McLean County, about 300 ft from a proposed carbon seize injection nicely.
“We shall be within the quick neighborhood of the pipeline and nicely when farming that discipline, and I feel that offers us, if there’s a rupture, we might have two minutes to evacuate,” Adams stated.
Uncertainty over Trump’s plans for carbon seize tax credit score
Because the Earth’s floor temperature continues to rise from using fossil fuels, Marquis Vitality says its plant can obtain “internet zero manufacturing” by means of carbon seize.
The corporate can even obtain $85 for each ton of carbon it sequesters by means of federal tax credit that might whole hundreds of thousands of {dollars} yearly. With out the tax credit score, firms have little incentive to spend money on carbon seize, stated Scott Irwin, chair of the College of Illinois’ agricultural advertising division.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly called climate change a hoax, however his picks to steer the Environmental Safety Company and his proposed Nationwide Vitality Council have been vocal of their assist for carbon seize.
Darrell “Mark” Marquis, CEO of Marquis Vitality, spent $110,000 final yr on a number of pro-Trump campaigns, in response to federal marketing campaign finance data.
Nonetheless, uncertainty surrounds the Trump administration’s plans for the 45Q tax credit for carbon seize. The president has promised to finish EPA guidelines limiting energy plant emissions, which can have an effect on whether or not these industries proceed with their carbon seize plans. Nevertheless, if the present credit score of $85 per ton stays, ethanol firms should wish to money in.
Some say carbon seize ought to be targeted on tougher to decarbonize industries, like cement and metal vegetation, which produce extra world carbon emissions.
“Ethanol is the low-hanging fruit. They aren’t actually fixing a tough drawback,” stated Tracy Fox, who’s with the Coalition to Cease Predatory Pipelines, an Illinois-based group against CO2 pipelines.
However past the science and environmental arguments over carbon seize, many see ethanol as purely a neighborhood financial concern.
Lowering Marquis Vitality’s ethanol manufacturing could be detrimental to many Illinois farmers, stated Betsy Rowland, who farms 8,000 acres of corn and soybeans in Bureau County.
“If one thing have been to occur to these ethanol vegetation, they wouldn’t simply be the farmers that have been hurting,” she stated. “There’s not quite a bit happening in Bureau County job-wise moreover agriculture, and to have one thing occur to these vegetation would actually damage the group.”
This article first appeared on Investigate Midwest and is republished right here below a Inventive Commons license.
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