ETHANOL

While Congress set out specific goals for the program through 2022, the law expands the EPA's authority for 2023 and beyond to change the way the RFS is administered.

The EPA enforces a summertime ban on E15 over concerns it contributes to smog in hot weather, though research has since shown the 15% blend may not increase smog relative to the more common E10 sold year-round.

A group of farmers near Leola, South Dakota, and Aberdeen, South Dakota, say they are ethanol supporters but that the proposed Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline will cause them far more than what the company is paying for easements. They also say the lurking threat of eminent domain is inappropriate because the pipeline is not for a public utility. They think the long-term strategy of installing a pipeline to satisfy what may be of environmentally uncertain value is wrong, substituting their loss for likely a temporary gain for ethanol and pipeline investors.

Gary Tharaldson, North Dakota’s successful hotel developer and owner of Tharaldson Ethanol in Casselton, North Dakota, describes how his company will move forward after the death of chief operating officer Ryan Thorpe. Tharaldson urges people to check in on others but said there was no warning at work that would have predicted the tragedy of Thorpe's death by suicide.

The North Dakota Soybean Processors plant at Casselton and the Green Bison plant at Spiritwood are signs of the growing demand for renewable fuel as well as feed for the livestock industry.

The decision means carbon pipeline companies must file for a siting permit with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. Without statewide authority, permitting would have been left up to individual counties along the pipeline route.

The Montevideo-based nonprofit Clean Up the River Environment told the Yellow Medicine County Board of Commissioners its concerns about risks associated with what would be a first-of-its-kind project by Summit Carbon Solutions. The $4.5 billion project would build a five-state, 2,000-mile pipeline network — with about 200 miles in Minnesota — to transport carbon dioxide from ethanol plants for sequestration in North Dakota.

Summit Carbon Solutions has hosted six open house meetings in Minnesota for landowners along the proposed route of a pipeline to carry carbon dioxide. The No. 1 message from those meetings has been concern about drain tiles, company officials told the Yellow Medicine County Board of Commissioners.