Linden

The Linden Project is a Class VI carbon storage development in northern Montgomery County, Indiana, on the eastern edge of the Illinois Basin. Vault Alliance CCS, LP is the applicant, operator, and permit holder for the injection well and pipeline. The application is under EPA review. The CO₂ comes from corn fermentation at the Valero Renewable Fuels ethanol plant in Linden, 2.5 miles southwest of the site, which produces 135 million gallons of ethanol a year. Valero builds the capture facility; Vault Alliance takes custody of the supercritical CO₂ at the plant and moves it by underground pipeline to the Linden Sassafras Hill Injection Well 1. Injection targets the Cambrian Mt. Simon Sandstone from 4,300 to 5,900 feet below sea level, deep and warm enough to hold the CO₂ supercritical. The Mt. Simon has taken injection from Class I, II, and VI wells across the region for decades. The Eau Claire Shale, roughly 650 feet thick at the well, is the primary seal, with the Maquoketa, New Albany, and Knox above it. The design case is 700,000 tonnes a year for 30 years, about 21 million tonnes total. Three monitoring wells accompany the injector: a deep observation well, an above confining zone well, and a lowermost USDW well, tracking plume movement, pressure, and the intervals above the seal.