Construction of Green Plains Inc.’s Trailblazer CCS project remains on track, with Tallgrass securing all the rights of way for the project’s laterals and Class VI sequestration well permits, the biorefining company announced Jan. 16.

Green Plains’ Trailblazer project will transport captured biogenic CO2 from a number of Nebraska ethanol facilities to sequestration wells in Wyoming once operational.

The project is on track to produce low carbon ethanol from carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) in the second half of 2025, Green Plains said. The company is now positioned to profit from the Inflation Reduction Act’s 45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit.

Guidance for the credit was released on Jan. 10, which detailed a tax credit for production of transportation fuels with lifecycle greenhouse-gas emissions, such as ethanol, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury website. 

“We have positioned ourselves to participate not only in this upside from the Federal tax credits, but also state low carbon fuel markets or private carbon credit markets, as well as being a leading supplier of low carbon feedstocks for use in alcohol to jet SAF as that market develops in the future,” said President and CEO Todd Becker.

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The 45Z GREET model allows for U.S. corn ethanol’s carbon intensity (CI) to be reduced by using CCS, Green Plains said in the press release.

“We are uniquely situated to benefit from our ability to sequester the biogenic carbon dioxide and reduce the CI of our ethanol by more than half,” Becker said.

Tallgrass began building the laterals to connect the Nebraska plants in 2024. Construction of compression infrastructure is expected in February and delivery of the compression equipment will occur in second-quarter 2025.

By the second half of 2025, the project will begin to permanently sequester 800,00 tons of biogenic CO2 each year from Green Plains’ Central City, Wood River and York, Nebraska locations.

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