By Kim Chipman

The world’s biggest maker of corn ethanol says U.S. states that don’t embrace efforts to capture and store greenhouse gases risk being “left behind.”

Poet LLC said in a statement Thursday it remains committed to the technology even after a 1,300-mile pipeline project it’s backing to ship carbon dioxide across the Midwest suffered a major setback this week amid public resistance.

“States that are slow to adopt these technologies risk being left behind,” South Dakota-based Poet said in the statement. 

Projects to trap emissions from ethanol factories are crucial for the industry to cash in on tax credits in President Biden’s landmark climate bill and have attracted big Wall Street investments. Yet efforts to build pipelines to ship the carbon dioxide are running aground in the face of opposition from a broad coalition of environmentalists, farmers and landowners.

The developer building the pipeline Poet is backing, Navigator CO2, withdrew its application Tuesday for a permit in Illinois, saying it needs to rethink the route for the project that would ship emissions from factories across five Midwest states. South Dakota regulators rejected Navigator’s request for a permit last month.

An even bigger carbon dioxide pipeline proposed by Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions was denied a permit by North Dakota in August. Summit is asking officials to reconsider the decision.

Related:What’s at stake in carbon pipeline argument

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