A little over three years ago, a representative from ethanol manufacturer One Earth Energy knocked on Sally Lasser’s door. 

The representative, who Lasser said was “a dear neighbor,” told her his company was working on a new project to cut down its carbon footprint and handed her a yellow envelope, containing information about a complex technology called carbon capture and sequestration. 

In the manufacturing process, carbon dioxide is filtered out of the air, converted into its liquid form, transported offsite via pipelines, and then stored nearly a mile underground.

“At first, I thought nothing of it,” said Lasser, who owns a farm just outside Gibson City in central Illinois. “I read it. I didn’t understand it. I put it aside.”

Carbon capture isn’t new, but in recent years it’s been gaining popularity among fuel manufacturers and policymakers. Producing natural gas, oil or ethanol typically leads to a lot of carbon emissions, so companies such as ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron see carbon capture as a way to lessen their environmental impact without significantly changing the way they make their fuel. 

But if carbon dioxide leaks out of an underground well or an above-ground pipeline, it could be dangerous to humans, and companies pursuing carbon capture haven’t always reported leaks. One Earth is looking to inject its CO2 just outside the borders of the Mahomet Aquifer, the main source of water for over 800,000 central Illinoisans in 14 counties. 

Though leaks are extremely rare, some people, including Lasser, are afraid of their groundwater being contaminated — and afraid of trusting ethanol companies to keep that water safe.

“Harming our water supply harms people. Accidents above ground harm people,” said Lasser. “And I thought about my community that’s right next door … and I just thought, this is dangerous.”

For Illinois, a state that ranks third nationally in ethanol production, carbon sequestration could play a major role in helping state industries reach their climate targets — and reaching emission reduction goals set by Gov. JB Pritzker’s Climate and Equitable Jobs Act. The governor has touted the climate and economic benefits of sequestration. 

In 2024, though, the state passed a law dubbed the SAFE Act, which put a temporary two-year moratorium on carbon capture and storage projects and set stricter safety requirements for carbon capture once the moratorium is lifted in July 2026. That makes Illinois the second state after California to pass a temporary moratorium, even as other states such as Wyoming and North Dakota are working to fast-track the carbon sequestration permitting process.

In August, Illinois also permanently banned storing CO2 beneath the Mahomet Aquifer. The ban put a stop to three other proposed carbon sequestration projects in central Illinois, but it does not address building in the aquifer’s neighboring watersheds. 

That’s where One Earth is planning to store its carbon dioxide, about 5 miles outside the border of the Mahomet Aquifer. 

Scientists say that the project is unlikely to contaminate groundwater, since the CO2 is stored hundreds of feet below the aquifer. But failures in carbon sequestration technology aren’t impossible, and they’ve happened before in Illinois, most recently at ethanol company Archer Daniels Midland’s carbon injection site in Decatur last year. 

“In the case with ADM, they did not necessarily come forth right away and admit they had leaks,” said Brent Lage, a grain farmer who lives near Lasser on the outskirts of Gibson City. “That’s definitely a concern for me, as well as with this One Earth project.”

Leaks like these — and a lack of public information about them — have sowed seeds of distrust among some Illinoisans as well as residents in other states, said Matthew Tejada, a former administrator for the U.S. EPA’s environmental justice programs who now works for the Natural Resource Defense Council.

“Unfortunately, in my experience, that is how (carbon sequestration) projects have rolled out across the country. They’ve been pushed out as if they’re inevitable, and the people in the communities that will be impacted by them very rightly are saying, not so fast. I have not had a chance to have my say,” Tejada said.

Yet, because opinions on carbon capture tend not to fall along partisan lines, regulating this issue in Springfield can be complicated. 

“I think what I’ve seen is there are people who are totally against it for whatever reason, whether it’s political or otherwise, but there are those who strongly believe in the science of it,” said state Sen. Paul Faraci, D-Champaign, who co-sponsored the ban on sequestration beneath major aquifers.

Faraci has been involved in regulating sequestration projects since the early 2000s and said he thinks they have great potential, as long as they aren’t sited near aquifers.

Now, with the temporary moratorium in place, the state has to decide the future of the industry — and whether the risks it brings outweigh the emission reductions it promises. 

“Illinois is a great case study of where there’s significant public concern, and these facilities may not have social license to operate,” said Jennifer Dunn, a professor of chemical and biological engineering at Northwestern University. “It could just impede what I’m starting to see as one of the big things we want on the menu of climate change solutions.”

Time to pivot

Lage, the grain farmer and a 39-year-old father of four, is one of many central Illinois farmers whose primary crop is corn. While most of his corn goes to a snack production company, he said he often takes some of it to the local grain elevator, which supplies corn to One Earth. For years, he even took some of his crops to the company directly.

“During harvest, I put corn in my bins, and later in the season, I hauled it out of the bins to a market, and I would take it to the ethanol plant,” he said. “They chew up a lot of bushels of corn from the area.”

One Earth is one of 13 ethanol companies in Illinois that support a booming industry in the state. Last year, their Gibson City plant consumed almost 48 million bushels of corn, and typically pays farmers about $4 per bushel. The plant is owned by parent company REX American Resources, a public company that also owns another ethanol plant in North Dakota.

But as Democratic leaders push for the phaseout of fossil fuels, the ethanol industry has to find a path forward. One Earth Energy President Steve Kelly said the company’s ethanol is mainly used to make gasoline — a venture that could become less and less profitable as electric vehicles become more common.

For Kelly, carbon capture and sequestration is the solution to keep his business afloat.

“As we see that market (for traditional fuel) shrink out there, if we’re going to continue this business on into the future and feed these local economies … the bottom line is, it’s just time for us to pivot and to move on,” Kelly said.

Reducing its carbon emissions will allow One Earth’s ethanol to be used as sustainable aviation fuel, a type of jet fuel that has a lower carbon footprint than traditional petroleum-based fuel. One Earth’s ethanol can be blended with petroleum, and as long as the carbon emissions from the production of this fuel are 50% lower than that of traditional jet fuel, it will qualify for government certification as an SAF.

Kelly said the sequestration project will cut the company’s carbon emissions by about 75% and will hopefully qualify their ethanol for use as a sustainable fuel.

Geologically, central Illinois is an ideal place for carbon sequestration, according to Randy Locke, chief scientist for research and development at the Illinois State Geological Survey.

Over a mile beneath the fertile farmland on which Gibson City sits, there’s a layer of rock known as the Mount Simon Sandstone. This layer of sandstone is extremely porous, and directly above it, there’s about 500 feet of “cap rock” that acts as a seal, which scientists say will block anything in the Mount Simon Sandstone from seeping into upper layers of sediment.

“(The cap rock) has prevented upward flow of fluids for very long spans of time, and in some cases millions of years,” Locke said.

This geologic formation is where One Earth plans to store its CO2. The porous sandstone can absorb the carbon dioxide, and over the course of several hundred years, the liquid will eventually harden and become part of the rock formation.

There are also big financial incentives driving the growth of carbon sequestration. One Earth would receive an estimated $85 per gallon of CO2 stored underground through a federal tax incentive known as 45Q. Sequestration permitting has skyrocketed since this incentive was expanded by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. 

While President Donald Trump has cut some research initiatives that would help make carbon sequestration more scalable, Ben King, a policy analyst with the think tank Rhodium Group, said most federal carbon sequestration policies and incentives have remained surprisingly intact.

“(The one big beautiful bill) really sort of took an ax to a number of clean energy technologies, making it much harder to claim tax credits for wind and for solar, for hydrogen production, for electric vehicles, all sorts of things like that,” King said. “One of the few things that came through that tax fight relatively unscathed was carbon capture.” 

At the same time, One Earth is working on expanding its production capacity, which is currently at 150 million gallons of ethanol annually, up to 175 million. After that, it plans to apply for a permit to increase it to 200 million.

According to recent public filings by REX American Resources, the sequestration and expansion projects will cost at least $220 million. The company has spent just over $120 million to build a compressor facility that will capture and condense CO2, and to expand the production capacity for the ethanol plant. Kelly said they’re prepared to finance the project without taking out any loans. REX has $310 million in cash and cash equivalents on hand.

With the moratorium in place for another year, though, REX’s first quarter report notes that they’re moving forward with the project “with no assurance of the ultimate success or timing of the project.”

It’s a big risk, and one that Kelly said he’s willing to take.

But as Lage began to hear more about the sequestration project, he became skeptical of Kelly’s argument. Watching the construction on the compressor facility every time he passed through town, Lage said he felt like One Earth was being “overconfident.”

“All I could think was, holy smokes,” he said. “They’re already building this facility, and they have no permits for wells, they have no permits to build a pipeline or anything else.” 

While most people in the Gibson City area who don’t farm are solidly against the project, Lage said farmers tend to be more split in their opinions, mostly because One Earth is such an economic engine for the area. 

Lage, though, is among a handful of farmers who have tried to stop selling corn directly to the company — not because he’s against ethanol, but more because of a “difference of opinion” about carbon sequestration.

“I think when people have that mindset like, ‘we have to get this project going through, otherwise the ethanol plant is going to close,’ I’m like, I don’t think so,” Lage said. “I think you guys would just be saying that to push your agenda because of what you want to happen.”

‘Sole source’ aquifer

In 2023, about a year after Lasser first received a visit from a One Earth representative, the company came to her house again. 

The farm has been in her family since her father bought it in 1997 and started cultivating native plants on the property. Lasser, 60, has worked to maintain the prairie as her father intended.  

She began to look more closely at the contract that One Earth had offered her, and found that they wanted to pay her to run a pipeline across her property that would carry CO2 from their ethanol plant to the injection well, about 6 miles from Gibson City.

Lasser approached her insurance company to ask if signing the contract would affect her property insurance policy. Her agent told her that, if the pipeline was built on her property, she would be dropped from her current policy.

“This is a risk (we) would not want to take on, or would make her property ineligible to have continued coverage,” reads a letter from Lasser’s insurance agent.

Carbon dioxide is an asphyxiant, meaning it can cause suffocation when inhaled at high concentrations. If a CO2 pipeline bursts above ground, this gas is released into the air in abnormally high amounts, which can cause sickness that requires immediate medical care. For farmers such as Lasser and Lage, whose livelihood depends upon safe access to their land, the threat of a pipeline rupture is a big concern.

“I work among other natural gas pipelines that are there in the area, and I can’t say I feel any immediate danger when I’m working around them, but it’s more so the long-term thoughts of this project,” Lage said. 

Lasser attended several McLean County Zoning Board meetings in 2023 while the board was considering One Earth’s proposal. 

There, she learned the injection well was supposed to be located in a watershed near the Mahomet Aquifer that serves as a “recharge zone” — an area where additional water can soak into the aquifer. 

“I just felt like, within 10 or 15 minutes, my eyes were wide open,” Lasser said. “I had had hours of presentation given to me (by One Earth), versus, like I said, a few minutes into this zoning meeting, I was absolutely sure I was not going to move forward.”

The state law that banned carbon sequestration above or beneath the Mahomet Aquifer was signed into law by Pritzker in August and takes effect Jan. 1. The initial version of that law, which was proposed during last year’s legislative session, would have also banned sequestration in three neighboring watersheds near the Mahomet Aquifer — including the area where the One Earth injection site is located. But the law that ultimately passed left out these watersheds, narrowly allowing the One Earth project to continue. 

Small amounts of CO2 in water aren’t inherently dangerous, said Brad Sageman, a Northwestern professor who worked on a carbon sequestration research project with Dunn, the engineering professor. But studies show that over time, carbonation can cause nearby metals to dissolve into the water at higher rates. 

“It decreases the pH of the fluids, and ultimately that can cause the dissolution of certain minerals,” Sageman said.

The U.S. EPA has also designated the Mahomet Aquifer as a “sole source” aquifer, meaning that it’s the only reliable source of water in the central Illinois region and can’t be easily replaced by another source.

“If it goes poorly, that water is gone, that aquifer is gone, you don’t get it back,” said Dawn Dannenbring, an environmental justice organizer with Illinois People’s Action who has been advocating against the One Earth project. “That leaves those communities that depend upon those water sources literally high and dry.”

According to Kelly, One Earth’s pipeline plan includes “a number of state-of-the-art safety features”, including automatic shutoff valves, in-person monitoring and several leak detection and flow measurement devices. One Earth has also been consulting with state scientists, including Locke from the Illinois State Geological Survey, to ensure that the project is safe.

Lea Cline, chair of the McLean County Land Use and Transportation Committee, said the county rejected One Earth’s application because of safety concerns, mostly related to the injection wells’ proximity to the aquifer. 

“There were no state rules — in fact, there weren’t really even federal rules about a lot of this stuff,” Cline said. “It kind of felt like we were in the Wild West, and trying desperately to make sense out of what was going on and protect ourselves.”

In most states, including Illinois, the federal EPA handles permitting for injection wells. To earn one of these permits, called Class VI permits, companies have to go through an extensive review to make sure that the well design, construction plans and monitoring can safely store CO2. For the pipelines that will carry CO2 from One Earth’s facilities to the wells, the Illinois Commerce Commission has the final say.

While state politicians have split in the past over carbon sequestration, keeping it out of the aquifer is something they’ve agreed on. Faraci’s bill banning carbon sequestration below the aquifer passed out of the state Senate with unanimous support — a rarity in Springfield. 

“Fresh drinking water is a nonpartisan issue. This is an environmental safety issue,” Faraci said. “I think this shows that, especially in a very divisive potential environment of politics, there are times where we get together and can work on projects together.”

His co-sponsor, Sen. Chapin Rose, a Republican from Mahomet, has publicly referred to carbon sequestration projects as “risky carbon experiments.” 

Ultimately, the county can’t stop One Earth’s injection wells if it does get U.S. EPA approval. But the county’s zoning laws can impose additional guidelines on the company’s building process. For instance, McLean County could require One Earth to work with local authorities to craft an emergency response plan in the event of a CO2 leak, which Kelly said the company is currently working on.

“I would be much happier if they would just move the wells a couple of miles out of the way (of the aquifer),” Cline said. “But, you know, the applications are what they are, and so we’ll just sort of have to see, when they come back to us, what that looks like.”

Eroding public trust

If One Earth’s permits are approved by state and federal authorities, the carbon dioxide will be injected into the Mount Simon Sandstone, where it is expected to remain permanently. 

That doesn’t always happen, though. 

According to Sageman, there are two main ways that CO2 could hypothetically leak into a different layer of rock — if there’s a leak in the injection well itself, or if the CO2 flows upward into an abandoned well. 

“Any leakage from deeper in a stratigraphic section is cause for concern,” Sageman said.

There are thousands of abandoned wells across Illinois, and some of these might not be properly sealed to prevent fluids from entering into them. According to a report that One Earth submitted to the EPA, though, any holes in the area “would be expected to be less than 600 feet deep based on the regional trend of coals mapped through the area.” 

In 2017, agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland opened the nation’s first operational carbon sequestration well in Decatur. But in March 2024, a nearby monitoring well detected a leak in the CO2 injection well. 

ADM reported the leak to the EPA in August 2024, but it never publicly shared that the leak had happened. The following month, after the EPA ordered the ADM to perform further testing, they discovered a second leak.

On Thursday, U.S. Reps. Sean Casten, D-Illinois, and Jared Huffman, D-California, sent a letter to U.S. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin urging the agency to stop approvals and operations for carbon capture and storage facilities until systemic problems have been addressed. They cited the ADM leak and a pattern of well failures and noncompliance at injection wells in Texas.

According to Locke, the ADM well’s design was “atypical” in comparison to other carbon sequestration well designs that have been approved by the EPA, and ADM has since modified their wells. The CO2 leak didn’t lead to any contamination of surface water or groundwater. 

“Even in the case of ADM, where there was movement of CO2 and brine up above this cap rock … That’s still 4,000 feet below where the potable aquifer is,” Locke said.

Still, experts such as Sageman and Tejada say the fact that the leak happened at all eroded the public’s trust in the technology.

“It mainly exacerbated people’s concern because the premise is that the CO2 goes to depth, and stays there,” Sageman said. “The fact that it was detected at shallower depths was the cause of concern.”

The ADM leak was another major argument that Lasser remembered hearing from opponents of the One Earth project. The fact that the company didn’t publicly report the leak made them nervous about what would happen if a similar leak happened in one of One Earth’s pipelines or wells.

Lage said he noticed lots of his neighbors had never heard of the One Earth project. The company never hosted public informational meetings about the project. So he started going door to door, passing out flyers about the project. 

Lasser, too, said she felt like One Earth representatives had brushed aside some of her questions about how underground sequestration would work. 

She also heard that neighbors were nervous about the possibility of One Earth using eminent domain to build their pipelines. In Illinois, a company can move forward with building a CO2 pipeline if the owners of 75% of the land on which the pipeline would run agree to the project. Even if the remaining 25% oppose it, the state can use eminent domain to force the pipeline onto their property. 

The original draft of the SAFE Act would have limited this use of eminent domain, but the final law kept the rule as is.   

According to REX’s recent filings, One Earth has gotten land easements “from all necessary landowners” to build pipelines on their property for two of the three injection wells, as well as easements from landowners whose property sits above the part of the Mount Simon Sandstone where the CO2 will be injected.

In a written comment provided to the Tribune, a One Earth representative shared that landowners in the project area “agreed to voluntary pore space and pipeline easements after careful negotiation and consideration.”   

Kelly, president of One Earth, said the company is “committed to working with the communities that we operate in … to ensure that all the requirements, whether it’s the old requirements or any new legislation passed here, that we comply with them all.”

With about 10 months remaining on Illinois’ carbon sequestration permitting moratorium, One Earth remains ready to move ahead with its project and expects the EPA to issue a decision on its application for a federal permit by April. Even with some critical regulations omitted from Illinois’ recent state laws on carbon sequestration, the state is still taking one of the most cautious approaches to regulating this technology in the nation.

But what residents want to see is a boost in awareness about these issues — and a better commitment to safety and transparency.

“I would like to protect the community as much as possible, and let people learn as much as possible,” Cline said. “Our biggest enemy in all of this is a lot of disinformation.”

Lily Carey is a freelancer.