Siouxland News: “Along the Route: Northwest Iowa farmer ready for partnership with carbon pipelines”

Kelly Nieuwenhuis, a long-time farmer in Iowa, participated in an interview to share his insight on the biofuels industry and how carbon capture pipelines are the future.

He’s been part of the biofuels industry for years and has watched it grow and evolve with a changing market. “I’ve been involved in the biofuels industry for 20 years,” he told me on a visit to his farm. “And the last 10 years I’ve been involved in the industry and definitely focused on carbon in tax reductions or carbon intensity reductions.”

Farming in O’Brien County, Iowa, he’s one of several landowners who have proposed carbon capture pipelines mapped for their property and he’s already on board.

Overall, Nieuwenhuis sees carbon capture as the next major step forward for the ag industry. “It just came home from the U.S. Grains Council meetings, and every country was talking about the need to lower your carbon intensities, and in their markets, they’re paying you a premium to do it. And so I think if the biofuels industry wants to compete with the rest of the energy industry.”

And as the world rallies for net-zero emissions by the year 2030, “that’s a huge step to the race to net zero,” said Nieuwehnuis. “And I think we can get to net zero in the next decade in biofuels and with the energy of the world focusing on low carbon we need to meet or continue to improve our process to stay in the game.”

Click here to read entire interview.