By J.D. Myers

Fort Dodge Messenger

March 8, 2023

I am a fifth-generation farmer in Humboldt County. The corn I raise is delivered to Gold Eagle Coop and is manufactured into livestock feed or ethanol, and the beans are manufactured into oil and meal. For more than 20 years, I have also worked off farm in the livestock industry. I understood that the grain I raised needed to be used locally to keep the basis strong and demand high. When the ethanol boom took off in the early 2000s, I was a supporter of this transition for some of those same reasons. Both the livestock and ethanol production in our area have allowed us to consistently enjoy profits over the last 20 years. 

Today we are at the next step to keeping ethanol viable for the foreseeable future. Customers of our ethanol product across the globe are asking for low carbon fuels. In fact, many markets are paying a premium for low carbon fuels and Iowa ethanol, supported by Iowa corn growers, can help meet that demand through carbon sequestration. I first heard about these types of projects more than two years ago, and it piqued my interest and as a result I looked into it further. After I understood how the process worked and the value that can be added from the CO2 that is currently being produced and released, I started following one of the pipeline companies progress closely. 

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