PLYMOUTH — During their meeting on Thursday night, the Marshall County Plan Commission began discussions on developing an ordinance about carbon capture systems in the county.
A carbon capture system is a technology that captures carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from industrial sources like power plants or factories, preventing them from entering the atmosphere. The captured CO2 is then either stored deep underground in geological formations or utilized in various other applications.
During the discussion of other items at the end of the meeting, the subject of beginning work on how the county should view and handle such facilities was addressed, as it is currently in part of a larger two-year moratorium on other projects such as farm-scale solar projects, utility-scale battery energy storage systems, and data centers in the county.
During that moratorium, the Plan Commission will need to address the final form of ordinances on how all those projects should be handled in Marshall County and make its recommendation to the County Commissioners.
The initial discussion centered on whether or not to simply ban the projects. Plan Director Nicholas Witwer told the board that even if they did institute a ban, the action would only be in effect as long as the board decided to keep it in place.
The Commission voted to proceed with public meetings and discussions to begin drafting an ordinance regarding carbon capture.
