Green Plains secures all Rights of Way for ‘Advantage Nebraska’

These facilities are expected to be among the first significant volumes of low-carbon ethanol from carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) in the United States and position the company to participate in the early days of the 45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit, the details of which were recently revealed.

We are very pleased with the progress that Tallgrass has made on the Trailblazer CCS project. Tallgrass has secured all the rights of way for the laterals to connect our Nebraska plants, and all Class VI sequestration well permits have been issued, allowing us to stay firmly on schedule, said Todd Becker, President and CEO at Green Plains.

According to Todd Becker, construction of the compression infrastructure is “planned to begin in February, with the delivery of the compression equipment anticipated for the second quarter.”

With Tallgrass commencing construction of the laterals in 2024, we remain on schedule to permanently sequester 800,000 tonnes of biogenic carbon dioxide each year from our Central City, Wood River, and York, Nebraska locations beginning in the second half of the year. The compression equipment is designed to scale to accommodate the potential for increased production and post-combustion carbon capture, with overall carbon capture capacity up to 1.2 million tonnes per year, Todd Becker said.

The recently released 45Z GREET model allows American corn ethanol to reduce its carbon intensity (CI) score by approximately 32 points with CCS.

Additionally according to Green Plains based on a preliminary analysis of the model:

• Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC) penalties for corn were further reduced, resulting in a lower starting CI for US corn ethanol relative to prior GREET models;
• A transportation penalty is assessed on imported Used Cooking Oil (UCO) relative to domestic UCO, and imported UCO is prohibited from claiming the 45Z credit if used to make on-road fuels such as biodiesel or renewable diesel;
• Using Renewable Corn Oil (DCO) as a feedstock to produce renewable diesel would result in an approximately 25-point CI advantage for the finished fuel relative to using soybean oil as the feedstock.

Our carbon capture strategy continues to gain momentum, and we are now even closer to being operational across our 287 million-gallon Nebraska footprint. We also believe the value of this is not reflected in our current share price as this project can create significant earnings and value creation opportunities for our shareholders by producing some of the lowest carbon intensity fuel in the world. With the recently released guidance on 45Z, we are more confident than ever that our ‘Advantage Nebraska’ strategy is the right course of action, and believe we are uniquely situated to benefit from our ability to sequester the biogenic carbon dioxide and reduce the CI of our ethanol by more than half, added Todd Becker.

For example:

Based on the most recent GREET model, our Central City facility, for example, has a base CI score of 51, and with carbon capture in place, it would be at 19 as a new starting point. In addition, our low-CI corn oil should now be further advantaged relative to other feedstocks. We have positioned ourselves to participate not only in this upside from the Federal tax credits but also in state low carbon fuel markets or private carbon credit markets, as well as being a leading supplier of low carbon feedstocks for use in alcohol to jet SAF as that market develops in the future, concluded Todd Becker.