It’s time to bust another myth about ethanol.

The special interest Sierra Club “opposes further deployment of corn-based ethanol.” The group argues that it is “crazy” for Americans to use ethanol “to fuel our cars and trucks” because it has a “negative effect” on the environment.

The truth is that removing CO2 from an ethanol plant’s fermentation process before being emitted into the atmosphere cuts a facility’s Carbon Intensity (CI) score an average of 50 percent (~35 points).

In comparison, installing a solar farm or wind turbines to power, an ethanol facility decreases a plant’s CI score by merely 3-5 points.

Thirty-two ethanol plants in Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska have partnered to advance a $4.5 billion carbon pipeline that will capture and safely store carbon dioxide underground in western North Dakota.

Rather than being harmful to the environment, projects like these demonstrate that utilizing ethanol carbon capture will dramatically reduce carbon emissions.