Environmental and Rural Community Groups Slam Department of Energy’s Weak Review of North Dakota’s Project Tundra (Again)

Montevideo, MN — On May 13, CURE, the Sierra Club, and Dakota Resource Council (DRC) submitted a joint comment challenging the findings of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) most recent environmental review of Project Tundra, a proposed large-scale Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project in North Dakota. (Read CURE’s press release here.)

Project Tundra is a proposal from Minnkota Power Cooperative—a rural electric cooperative that provides power to 137,000 member-owners in Minnesota and North Dakota. Minnkota wants to retrofit its aging Milton R. Young coal power plant with equipment to capture a fraction of its excessive carbon emissions, and has been awarded multiple federal and state grants, loans, and other subsidies to help pay for the $1.9 billion project. 

In September 2023, CURE and Sierra Club criticized DOE’s original Environmental Assessment of Project Tundra and urged the agency to correct a variety of errors regarding the project’s climate and water impacts. Unfortunately, DOE’s recently released Revised Draft Environmental Assessment still relies on a number of faulty assumptions, which, according to the comment makes “DOE’s conclusion that funding Project Tundra will have no significant adverse environmental impacts… unfounded and incorrect.”

Jeremy Fisher, Sierra Club Principal Advisor for Energy and Climate, said: “This DOE analysis sets a terrible example by allowing costly and inadequate carbon capture projects like Project Tundra to move forward, backstopped by Minnkota’s customers. It’s deeply problematic that DOE is ready to use taxpayer money to accelerate a CCS project that won’t even meet regulatory and statutory standards. Any approved CCS project should significantly reduce climate emissions, improve local air quality, and not exacerbate water issues. This project does none of that. We urge the DOE to tell the project proponents they need to go back to the drawing board.”    

Todd Leake, Nodak and Minnkota customer, and Chair of North Dakota Chapter, Sierra Club, said: “If Minnkota goes forward with Project Tundra, customers of rural electric coops might be on the hook for hundreds of millions, or possibly billions of dollars. This happened just north of us in Saskatchewan. Generating coops like Minnkota aren't regulated by the North Dakota Public Service Commission or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, so there is no public oversight of the debt they go into. DOE should not fund this risky project without more scrutiny.”

Specifically, the groups assert that the DOE analysis:

• Incorrectly assumes that if Project Tundra is not built, the Milton Young coal plant will continue to operate at current emission levels until the end of its remaining 20-year lifespan rather than retire or reduce its emissions, an assumption inconsistent with the economics of the plant and greenhouse gas regulations;
• Miscounts the amount of CO2 that will be captured by the entire facility and therefore severely overestimates the amount of tax credits the project will qualify for, and thereby overstates its economic feasibility;
• Misidentifies the power source for the extremely energy-intensive CCS facility and, in so doing, significantly undercounts the emissions associated with that electricity usage;
• Incorrectly assumes that the large amounts of steam used for CCS, rather than energy generation, has no impact on the energy generation of Milton Young, and significantly overstates the energy that can be extracted from the power plant;
• Uses perverse logic to minimize the intensive water use of Project Tundra and its impacts on North Dakotan and downstream communities; 
• Fails to acknowledge the high likelihood that the CO2 captured by the project could be used to produce even more oil through a process known as Enhanced Oil Recovery, given the project’s ties to Summit Carbon Solutions’ Midwest Carbon Express CO2 pipeline network. 

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The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.

CURE is rurally based, with staff across Minnesota. CURE knows rural people, lands, and ecosystems are vital to helping solve some of the biggest problems Minnesota and the country face. We help to tell the story of a vibrant rural future, lift-up people to lead, and work for policies and laws to make a better future possible for everyone.

Dakota Resource Council was founded in 1978 in order to protect North Dakota farms and ranches from widespread energy development. DRC’s mission is to promote sustainable use of North Dakota’s natural resources and family-owned and operated agriculture. To do this DRC builds member-led local groups that empower people to influence the decision-making processes that affect their lives and communities and protects the environment.