ADM ethanol carbon capture facility in Columbus is world's largest

Nebraska is now home to the largest bioethanol carbon capture facility in the world.

ADM on Monday announced the start of operations for a new carbon capture and storage project at its Columbus corn processing complex, which the company says is the world's largest such facility.

The facility is capturing carbon dioxide released during the ethanol fermentation process and feeding it into the Tallgrass Trailblazer pipeline for sequestration underground in eastern Wyoming.

“ADM has been a pioneer in the CCS (carbon capture storage) industry for more than a decade, and this is an expansion of that expertise,” Chris Cuddy, president of North America at ADM, said in a statement. “CCS is an important part of our strategy to decarbonize our operations and help meet global demand for low-carbon ingredients, and we are proud to work with Tallgrass to find innovative solutions at facilities like Columbus. This is an exciting project for the industry and for the future of CCS technology.”

The Tallgrass Trailblazer pipeline, which was formerly a natural gas pipeline, started up operations last month. It runs nearly 400 miles from Beatrice to eastern Wyoming and will carry around 10 million tons of carbon dioxide annually from nearly a dozen ethanol plants.