Project Launches To Pair Offshore Wind With Sustainable Food Production
Note that it’s a little over a fortnight to April Fool’s Day!
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
Win@Sea, a new collaboration between Vattenfall and Danish universities and companies, will investigate how to produce offshore wind power and sustainable food – all while improving the marine environment and biodiversity in the same marine area.
This is the first paragraph.
The partners will look into whether an offshore wind farm could simultaneously produce fossil-free electricity and sustainable food while also contributing positively to biodiversity in the same area.
But this report is not alone, in using the sea as a farm.
- Amazon Finances First-Ever Commercial-Scale Seaweed Farm Located Between Offshore Wind Turbines
- Brown Seaweed Could Remove 550 Million Tons Of Carbon
- The Plans For Giant Seaweed Farms In European Waters
- Oysters Get New Home At Eneco Luchterduinen Offshore Wind Farm
It sounds to me like a case of great minds thinking alike.
New California Hydrogen Fuel Plant Will Use Wood Waste
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Hydrogen Fuel News.
- It is being developed by a company called Mote.
- They are spending $100 million on the development.
- The plant will be built at Bakersfield in California.
The Mote web site is worth a look.
It explains their process with a good graphic.
- Wood waste is gasified and processed, so that the carbon dioxide and hydrogen are separated.
- The hydrogen is used as normal.
- The carbon dioxide is stored.
The company claims the process is carbon negative.
They also give figures for their first facility.
- It will remove 150,000 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere every year.
- It will produce twenty tonnes of hydrogen per day.
Fluor, who are one of the United States largest construction companies are involved.
Conclusion
In Can The UK Have A Capacity To Create Five GW Of Green Hydrogen?, I said the following.
Ryze Hydrogen are building the Herne Bay electrolyser.
- It will consume 23 MW of solar and wind power.
- It will produce ten tonnes of hydrogen per day.
The electrolyser will consume 552 MWh to produce ten tonnes of hydrogen, so creating one tonne of hydrogen needs 55.2 MWh of electricity.
This would mean that Mote’s Bakersfield plant is twice the size in terms of hydrogen production, than the electrolyser at Herne Bay.
Looking up Bakersfield on Wikipedia, it appears that there is a lot of agriculture in the area and it ranks in the top five in the States.
I’d like to learn more about this company and their method of hydrogen production.
Does it count as green hydrogen, as it appears the carbon dioxide is stored.
Given the agriculture in the area, could the carbon dioxide be fed to plants growing in greenhouses.
MAHYTEC Creates World’s First Hydrogen-Powered Riding Lawnmower
I searched for hydrogen-powered lawnmower and found this page.
Surely ideal for the Prince of Wales to buy for Camilla, when she does the mowing at Highgrove.
But seriously, if you can make a hydrogen-powered ride-on mower, you can make any number of smaller horticultural and agricultural vehicles, that run on hydrogen.
How long before John Deere or one of the big Japanese manufacturers releases a hydrogen-powered lawnmower, that takes the large grass-cutting market by storm?
It won’t be just the grass, that is green!
I suspect a company like ITM Power will provide the operator with their own hydrogen generator.
I can envisage the farm of the future, having the following.
- Hydrogen powered tractors, loaders and other powered machinery.
- Hydrogen-powered Range-Rover to speed through the lanes.
- Hydrogen-powered lawn mower to make the place look good.
- Hydrogen-powered vehicles for road use.
All would be powered by the farm’s own hydrgen generator, which might use their own wind turbine.
Norman Borlaug
I’d never heard of Norman Baulaug until yesterday. But as his obituary in the Times today stated.
Norman Borlaug has, in the opinion of many experts, saved more human lives than any other individual in history. He was the grandfather of the “Green Revolution” in which, between 1961 and 1980, wheat crop yields doubled, tripled and sometimes quadrupled around the world. His experiments with hybrid wheat strains and nitrogenous fertiliser created strains of the staple food impervious to pests, bad weather and poor soil, enabling the world to support a far greater human population than many thought possible after the Second World War. Yet his methods and message fell out of favour, to the detriment of millions — especially in Africa.
Read the full obituary and you get a flavour of someone who was not only a great scientist, but someone who was a deep thinker. He warned against population growth and felt that his advanced crops would only give a breathing space.
But it still did not prevent others from rubbishing his achievements.
Therein lies the rub. Some of his methods of using lots of fertiliser may well be challenged, but we all should agree with his policy of growing crops on the productive land. Surely, this should leave more land for other more idealistic uses. He even signed an agreement with one of founders of Greenpeace on this.
But one paragraph in the obituary is this.
Others followed his example, and India’s wheat crop increased from 12 million tonnes in 1965 to 17 million in 1967. That year Pakistan, a country dependent on wheat imports, imported 42,000 tonnes of seeds. It was self-sufficient in seed stocks 12 months later.
It just shows how if you are more efficient, things can a lot better.
If I have a gripe with him personally, it is that the greater part of his work was with wheat! I can’t eat it or wheat products because I’m a coeliac.
But as I repeat many times. It will not be politicians who get us out of the mess that they have created, but the scientists and engineers. We need a lot more like Norman Borlaug.
The Anonymous Widower 