In Between Times 2-9-2024
Gains in regenerative ag, Carbon capture is taking off, LNG issues, AI in recycling
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Walmart and General Mills team up to bring regenerative agriculture to 600,000 acres of American farmland
Regenerative agriculture, practices that use less tilling, fewer pesticides, and focus on crop movement that regenerates the soil is hard to transition to from today’s generally accepted farming processes. But more and more farms are doing it and help from giant corporations like Walmart and General Mills will be key to future progress. It is no small feat to convert a farm to regenerative practices and for many years yields typically diminish as the soil is restored. This means less money for the farmers during these years, but it is a worthy goal and once done results in healthier food and a healthier environment. But help through the transition is important.
(From The Cooldown)
The agreement between General Mills and Walmart is looking to deliver such projects in seven states, with North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Minnesota primed for investment.
“We’re committing to making the everyday choice the more sustainable choice for consumers,” said executive vice president of food at Walmart U.S. John Laney said. “This collaboration is an example of how we are working across our value chain on intentional interventions to help advance regenerative agriculture and ensure surety of supply for these essential food products for the long term.”
Click here for the article.
5 years in, how does General Mills’ regenerative agriculture commitment measure up?
General Mills wisely sees an investment in regenerative ag practices as an investment in the business’s future, which it absolutely is.
It is the giant companies that will bring regenerative agriculture to scale. Bob’s Organic Okra Patch is great. But it’s the big guys who will move things forward.
(From Green Biz)
For General Mills, too, it’s about insurance on the future of its business. The giant food company depends on improving the notoriously depleted soil in the U.S. and preserving biodiversity to keep producing, Mary Jane Melendez, its chief sustainability and global impact officer, told attendees at GreenBiz 23. Topsoil is eroding at a rate of 1.9 millimeters a year across the Midwest farming states, according to a study by geoscientists from the University of Massachusetts, double the rate the Department of Agriculture considers tolerable.
General Mills would not disclose its total investment in regenerative agriculture when asked. But it invested $2.3 million in a partnership with ALUS, a Canadian nonprofit that helps farmers improve soil health through nature-based solutions, and $3 million in the Ecosystem Services Market Consortium. Investments in several other partnerships to work with farmers across the U.S. add millions more to that total.
Click here for the article.
Regenerative agriculture sparks venture capital interest
As we mention above regenerative farming takes time and money. Where is the money coming from to develop tools to transition to more sustainable farming practices? Increasingly it’s coming from the venture capital community.
(From The Financial Times)
“If you’re a farmer and you’re going to transition to regenerative agriculture, the biggest barrier is knowledge and understanding best practices,” explains Durno. “We look towards things like generative AI [artificial intelligence] as an interface for farmers to get simpler agronomy advice.”Leslie Kapin, director of impact for VC company Astanor Ventures, says start-ups working on bio-based alternatives to conventional synthetic fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides can also fall within the regenerative agriculture bucket.
Fertiliser is a multi-billion-dollar industry, and finding alternatives could make for a lucrative opportunity. New technologies can also allow farmers to spray existing fertilisers and pesticides more precisely, thereby reducing the amount used.
Click here for the article.
This UK startup can capture 95% of a ship’s carbon emissions
Locking carbon into things like concrete appears to be a viable carbon sequestration method. In Europe a company called Seabound (get it?) is essentially doing this on shipping vessels. Their prototype shows significant promise.
(From The Next Web)
Seabound’s carbon capture equipment traps the exhaust gas produced by a cargo ship’s huge diesel engines. Instead of going into the atmosphere, the fumes get funnelled into a big, high-pressure chamber filled with calcium oxide pebbles.
The CO2 in the exhaust gas reacts with the pebbles and transforms into calcium carbonate — also called limestone. This limestone is then stored aboard the ship to be unloaded at dock.
Once on land, the limestone can be used as a building material or broken down to make new pebbles and pure CO2. This carbon dioxide can be buried underground or sold to companies to produce electrofuels. These are a class of synthetic fuels including green ammonia and methanol, that could, in turn, be used to power ships.
Click here for the article.
Decarbonization containers turn 78% of marine emissions into limestone
Could Norway become a graveyard for CO2 emissions?
Meanwhile in Norway a cross border CO2 storage facility is being opened which will store carbon deep below the Earth’s surface.
(From France 24)
The ships will arrive at the Northern Lights facility off the West coast where a set of pumps will unload the liquefied CO2 into the terminal, and from there, a pipeline will take it 100 kilometres out to sea and inject it 2 kilometres under the seabed.
The under-sea storage aquifer will store up to 1.5 million tonnes per year in its first phase, with a view to scale it up to 5 million per year in 2030. And the clients are lining up: apart from Heidelberg Materials, Dutch fertiliser giant Yara and Danish energy company Orsted have already signed deals to the tune of 1.23 million tonnes of CO2 per year.
Northern Lights’s Managing Director Borre Jacobsen believes that if demand rises enough in the years to come, pipelines could spring up across Europe to transport carbon from industrial hubs to facilities like this one.
We thought this bit at the end of the attached piece was very interesting and it reflects we believe a naive approach to climate matters.
Silje Lundberg from NGO Oil Change International condemns the project as an act of greenwashing: “The fact that Total, Equinor and Shell are the ones that are financing this project also just goes to show that they are using it as a way of prolonging the industry instead of actually looking into real solutions”.
First, they are financing 20% of the project with the rest shouldered by taxpayers. Second, this project is “a way of prolonging the industry instead of actually looking into real solutions”? No, this is what finding solutions looks like. The oil and gas industry isn’t going to just commit suicide because some climate activists would like it to do so. The best that such activists can hope for is that these companies, which constitute a massive part of the world economy, which provide millions of jobs globally, will get on board with projects like this one where “transition” is the explicit goal. Oil and gas, understandably isn’t interested in its own destruction and in a transition to a much less fossil fuel dependent world the expertise housed within such companies is invaluable and so they are key participants, not simply some enemy.
Click here for the article.
Who are the unintended winners from Biden’s US LNG ban?
There are always unintended consequences with any policy decision. There will be companies that benefit from the restriction of liquefied natural gas exports, namely the companies that already have licenses. Now new competitors are shut out.
US says allies 'reassured' LNG pause does not affect current exports
The restrictions on future LNG licenses triggered by the Biden administration this past week is of some concern to a world that needs the relatively clean fuel.
There is always Russia we suppose, which has lots of natural gas.
(From Reuters)
U.S. allies concerned about steady supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG) are reassured when they understand President Joe Biden's pause on LNG export approvals does not affect currently permitted shipments, a U.S. State Department official said on Monday.
"I've found that our allies who raise these issues with me, tend to be quickly reassured when you explain to them what this is, which is a pause," not a reversal, Geoffrey Pyatt, an assistant secretary for energy resources, told reporters in a call. "This policy will have no impact on currently permitted LNG exports."
Click here for the article.
How the world of recycling is about to be transformed
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