Project Tundra is an almost $2 billion project led by Minnkota Power Cooperative to build the United States’ largest carbon capture and sequestration facility at a coal-fired power plant.
Project Tunda aims to extend the operation of the 53-year-old Milton R. Young Station coal power plant in Center, ND. This coal power plant is at the end of its useful life, spewing excessive levels of greenhouse gas emissions in violation of newly finalized Clean Air Act rules. Instead of retiring the coal power plant and transitioning to affordable clean energy, Minnkota Power Cooperative is pursuing Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS*), a misallocation of state and federal funds, energy, and water resources. There are currently no functioning power plants with CCS in the country.
Waste of Money
To date, Project Tundra has been awarded almost $700 million in loans and grants from North Dakota and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to prop up the feasibility studies and design of CCS technology at the Milton R. Young plant. Project Tundra has two potential pathways to be economically viable:
- The 45Q tax credit** which provides $85 per metric ton of CO2 captured and injected underground. This will funnel billions in federal tax dollars to an obsolete coal power plant in the name of climate action.
- The 45Q tax credit + Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) — Under the 45Q tax credit code, Minnkota can receive $60 per metric ton of CO2 captured. Paired with EOR, which uses the captured CO2 to liberate otherwise inaccessible oil, Minnkota can also profit from the sale of their captured CO2 used for newly extracted oil.
Meanwhile, the expected cost for Project Tundra has already ballooned before project construction has even started—from approximately $1 billion at the beginning of 2022 to $1.94 billion, according to a March 2023 presentation to DOE.
**The 45Q tax credit is only available for 12 years, at which point the nearly $2 billion investment in Project Tundra is no longer economically viable. Yet the company is likely to get millions of dollars in federal grant money on the assumption that it will run for 20 years—eight of which would be uneconomic.
Waste of Energy & Water
Carbon Capture is incredibly energy intensive. Project Tundra will use about 30-40% of the energy it produces burning coal solely to capture the carbon using this new capture add-on. In addition, it will require almost five billion gallons of water annually just to run the CCS system at the Milton R. Young plant. This is enough water to sustain a population of 163,307 average Americans – far more than the population of Fargo or any other North Dakota city.
More Pollution
Project Tundra will lead to more pollution, not less, from the Milton R. Young plant, as MORE coal needs to be burned to maintain electricity output and capture the carbon it produces. Even if a percentage of the CO2 produced is “captured,” particulate matter, mercury, barium compounds, arsenic, and hydrochloric and sulfuric acid will still be released—and the lignite coal mined and burned in North Dakota is especially high in mercury.
Project Tundra also keeps the Milton. R Young plant operating beyond its intended lifespan—meaning it will burn coal and pollute the air longer than anticipated.
If the CO2 from Project Tundra is utilized for EOR instead of being sequestered forever, this leads to MORE greenhouse gas emissions from burning the oil extracted with the captured CO2. The North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources has continued to say more CO2 is needed for EOR suggesting that the CO2 from the Milton R. Young plant may be used for this purpose.
It’s also possible that Project Tundra will receive no tax credits at all – the project’s design seems to not capture enough CO2 to meet the minimum requirements to obtain those credits. In that situation, the member-owners of Minnkota Power Cooperative will be stuck paying exorbitant electricity bills.
Learn More:
*Carbon Capture & Sequestration (CCS): A process where CO2 is captured at an industrial facility—like a coal power plant — then compressed and transported through pipelines at high pressure to a storage site, where it is purportedly stored for an extended period of time.