Heartland Greenway

The Heartland Greenway Storage Site (HGSS) was proposed by Navigator CO₂ Ventures through its subsidiary, Heartland Greenway Carbon Storage LLC, as a Class VI CO₂ sequestration project northeast of Taylorville, Illinois. The project aimed to inject up to 5 million metric tons of CO₂ per year into the Mt. Simon Sandstone through six dedicated wells, with the Eau Claire Shale providing the primary seal. Covering a 35 × 35-mile modeling area, the design featured advanced well construction with corrosion-resistant materials, continuous monitoring systems (including 3D seismic, downhole logging, plume tracking, and groundwater testing), and a 15-year post-injection care period prior to closure. The site’s total estimated storage capacity was in the tens to hundreds of millions of metric tons, consistent with the Illinois Basin’s extensive CO₂ storage potential. However, the associated 1,300-mile Navigator Heartland Greenway pipeline, which was intended to transport CO₂ from more than 20 ethanol plants across the Midwest to the Illinois storage site, was cancelled in October 2023.