BLUE H2

Hyzon Motors and TC Energy announce modular hydrogen production hub development agreement

- Each production hub will produce up to 20 tonnes of low-to-negative carbon intensity hydrogen per day, close to Hyzon fleet deployments

NEWS PROVIDED BYHyzon

Nov 10, 2021, 08:35 ET

ROCHESTER, N.Y. and HOUSTON, Nov. 10, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyzon Motors Inc. (NASDAQ: HYZN), (Hyzon) a leading supplier of hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicles, and TC Energy Corporation (TSX,NYSE: TRP), (TC Energy), today announced an agreement to collaborate on development, construction, operation, and ownership of hydrogen production facilities (hubs) across North America.

The hydrogen production facilities will be used to meet hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle demand by focusing on low-to-negative carbon intensity hydrogen from renewable natural gas, biogas and other sustainable sources. The facilities will be located close to demand, supporting Hyzon back-to-base vehicle deployments.

"Through this agreement we are marrying the expertise of TC Energy in natural gas and renewables with that of Hyzon, which has its technology in fuel cell electric vehicles being delivered around the world today," said Corey Hessen, TC Energy's Senior Vice President and President, Power and Storage. "TC Energy is committed to exploring and developing energy solutions in North America for our own assets as well as those of customers to meet their energy transition needs. We believe we are well positioned to execute on the development of hydrogen and CO2 pipelines."

Under the agreement, the companies will evaluate sites across multiple states and provinces to develop hydrogen production facilities with the goal of hydrogen delivery to fuel heavy duty vehicles. The hubs will be prioritized near existing and potential customer demand with a goal to produce up to 20 tonnes of hydrogen per hub per day. TC Energy will operate the hubs, supply the power and gas commodities, and provide asset development, management services, and power and gas sales marketing.

"By partnering with TC Energy on modular hydrogen production hubs from a range of sustainable production feedstocks close to Hyzon fleet deployments we can fully decarbonize mobility at a very low cost and time to build," said Parker Meeks, Chief Strategy Officer, Hyzon Motors Inc. "This agreement is just one of the many steps and strategic partnerships that Hyzon Motors will be announcing in the coming months to confirm our ability to bring clean hydrogen infrastructure to market with our vehicles in the very near term."

Currently, Hyzon and TC Energy are evaluating near-term potential hydrogen hub production sites in a number of states, tied to prospective fleet customer deployments. In addition to Hyzon vehicle customers, the partnership will jointly market third-party hydrogen volumes to industrial sectors, power generation and energy distribution.

Utilizing existing partnerships with modular hydrogen technology partners, such as Raven SR and ReCarbon, TC Energy and Hyzon look to site hydrogen hubs to serve Hyzon fleet deployments, enabling unique speed to market for low-cost, low-to-negative carbon intensity hydrogen infrastructure development. This also complements TC Energy's strong renewable natural gas interconnections and pipeline network.

About Hyzon
Headquartered in Rochester, N.Y., with U.S. operations in the Chicago and Detroit areas, and international operations in the Netherlands, Singapore, Australia, Germany, and China, Hyzon is a leader in fuel cell electric mobility with an exclusive focus on the commercial vehicle market, and a near-term focus on back to base (captive fleet) operations. Utilizing its proven and proprietary hydrogen fuel cell technology, Hyzon aims to supply zero-emission heavy duty trucks and buses to customers in North America, Europe and around the world to mitigate emissions from diesel transportation, which is one of the single largest sources of carbon emissions globally. The Company is contributing to the escalating adoption of fuel cell electric vehicles through its demonstrated technology advantage, leading fuel cell performance and history of rapid innovation. Visit www.hyzonmotors.com.

About TC Energy
We are a vital part of everyday life - delivering the energy millions of people rely on to power their lives in a sustainable way. Thanks to a safe, reliable network of natural gas and liquids pipelines, along with power generation and storage facilities, wherever life happens — we're there. Guided by our core values of safety, responsibility, innovation, collaboration and integrity, our 7,500 people make a positive difference in the communities where we operate across Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

TC Energy's common shares trade on the Toronto (TSX) and New York (NYSE) stock exchanges under the symbol TRP. To learn more, visit us at TCEnergy.com.

FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION
This release contains certain information that is forward-looking and is subject to important risks and uncertainties (such statements are usually accompanied by words such as "anticipate", "expect", "believe", "may", "will", "should", "estimate", "intend" or other similar words). Forward-looking statements in this document are intended to provide TC Energy security holders and potential investors with information regarding TC Energy and its subsidiaries, including management's assessment of TC Energy's and its subsidiaries' future plans and financial outlook. All forward-looking statements reflect TC Energy's beliefs and assumptions based on information available at the time the statements were made and as such are not guarantees of future performance. As actual results could vary significantly from the forward-looking information, you should not put undue reliance on forward-looking information and should not use future-oriented information or financial outlooks for anything other than their intended purpose. We do not update our forward-looking information due to new information or future events, unless we are required to by law. For additional information on the assumptions made, and the risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ from the anticipated results, refer to the most recent Quarterly Report to Shareholders and Annual Report filed under TC Energy's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov .

AUSTRALIA
Huge amounts of cash ‘thrown around’ for hydrogen projects



The Australian’s Resources Writer Nick Evans says the concern some investors have with Fortescue’s involvement in signing projects to make hydrogen is if they were “so good, you might argue they would have been built already”.

It comes as Fortescue Metals Group chairman Andrew Forrest has signed several projects to create hydrogen with renewable energy but investors are concerned over a few issues such as the cost to construct the many projects.

Mr Forrest has admitted to shareholders it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to turn Fortescue into a green energy powerhouse.

“The total that I got to, and we’re probably under rather than over to be honest, is about US$146.5 billion, which let’s call it $195-200 Aussie dollars, billion,” Mr Evans told Sky News host Andrew Bolt.

He named a few of Mr Forrest’s projects, such as US$80 billion for the Grand Inga project in Democratic Republic of the Congo, which involves building dams and a hydro-electric project.

“I mean these are huge figures that have been sort of thrown up and thrown around.

“You’re still talking about hundreds, and hundreds of billions of dollars when we’re done.

“These are in very difficult jurisdictions; not many companies want to go into a business in DRC, for example.”

Humans are guilty of breaking an oceanic law of nature: study

by Autonomous University of Barcelona

Credit: Ian Hatton, Eric Galbraith et al.

A new international study carried out by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) has examined the distribution of biomass across all life in the oceans, from bacteria to whales. Their quantification of human impact reveals a fundamental alteration to one of life's largest scale patterns.

As policymakers assemble in Glasgow for the UN Climate Change Conference, there is growing recognition that human impacts on the environment are going global and growing urgent. However, gaining a quantitative perspective on these impacts has remained elusive.

Scientists from the ICTA-UAB in Spain, the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences in Germany, Queensland University of Technology in Australia, Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, and McGill University in Canada have used advances in ocean observation and large meta-analyses to show that human impacts have already had major consequences for the larger oceanic species, and have dramatically changed one of life's largest scale patterns—a pattern encompassing the entire ocean's biodiversity, from bacteria to whales.

Early samples of marine plankton biomass from 50 years ago led researchers to hypothesize that roughly equal amounts of biomass occur at all sizes. For example, although bacteria are 23 orders of magnitude smaller than a blue whale, they are also 23 orders of magnitude more abundant. This size-spectrum hypothesis has since remained unchallenged, even though it was never verified globally from bacteria to whales. The authors of the study, published in the journal Science Advances, sought to test this hypothesis on a global scale for the first time. They used historical reconstructions and marine ecosystem models to estimate biomass before industrial scale fishing got underway (pre-1850) and compared this data to the present-day.

"One of the biggest challenges to comparing organisms spanning bacteria to whales is the enormous differences in scale," recalls ICTA researcher and lead author Dr. Ian Hatton, currently based at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences. "The ratio of their masses is equivalent to that between a human being and the entire Earth. We estimated organisms at the small end of the scale from more than 200,000 water samples collected globally, but larger marine life required completely different methods."

Their approach focused on 12 major groups of aquatic life over roughly 33,000 grid points of the ocean. Evaluating the pre-industrial ocean conditions (pre-1850) largely confirmed the original hypothesis: There is a remarkably constant biomass across size classes.

"We were amazed to see that each order of magnitude size class contains approximately 1 gigaton of biomass globally," remarks co-author Dr. Eric Galbraith of the ICTA-UAB and a current professor at McGill University. However, he was quick to point out exceptions at either extreme. While bacteria are over-represented in the cold, dark regions of the ocean, the largest whales are relatively rare, thus highlighting exceptions from the original hypothesis.

In contrast with an even biomass spectrum in the pre-1850 ocean, an investigation of the spectrum at present revealed human impacts on ocean biomass through a new lens. While fishing and whaling only account for less than 3 percent of human food consumption, their effect on the biomass spectrum is devastating: large fish and marine mammals such as dolphins have experienced a biomass loss of 2 Gt (60% reduction), with the largest whales suffering an unsettling almost 90% decimation. The authors estimate that these losses already outpace potential biomass losses even under extreme climate change scenarios.

"Humans have impacted the ocean in a more dramatic fashion than merely capturing fish. It seems that we have broken the size spectrum—one of the largest power law distributions known in nature," reflects ICTA researcher and co-author Dr. Ryan Heneghan. These results provide a new quantitative perspective on the extent to which anthropogenic activities have altered life at the global scale. How to use marine ecosystem models to improve climate change impact forecasts

More information: Ian A. Hatton et al, The global ocean size spectrum from bacteria to whales, Science Advances (2021). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abh3732

Journal information: Science Advances 

Provided by Autonomous University of Barcelona 

30 Countries Pledged To Give Up Gasoline By 2040. The U.S. Didn't.

Apparently, we can't even sign on to "work towards" going zero-emissions

By Steve DaSilva


Photo: Ian Forsyth (Getty Images)

Right now, world leaders are gathered in Glasgow for the 26th running of the United Nations Climate Change Conference. COP26, as the cool kids are calling it, is focused around the radical idea that maybe we shouldn’t set the entire planet on fire to make a few incomprehensibly rich dudes slightly richer. The UN is aiming to make change through a series of vaguely-worded, entirely non-binding agreements, including one that sets a goal for new car sales to go zero-emission by 2040. It’s the absolute minimum a country can do, signing an agreement with no consequences for failure, but apparently still a bridge too far for the United States.

The declaration comes after over a week of panels, discussions, and agreements at the event. It’s specifically targeted at the automotive market, but not exclusive to consumer cars — fleets, both private and public, are included as well. From the full declaration:

A. As governments, we will work towards all sales of new cars and vans being zero emission by 2040 or earlier, or by no later than 2035 in leading markets.

B. As governments in emerging markets and developing economies, we will work intensely towards accelerated proliferation and adoption of zero emission vehicles. We call on all developed countries to strengthen the collaboration and international support offer to facilitate a global, equitable and just transition.

C. As cities, states, and regional governments, we will work towards converting our owned or leased car and van fleets to zero emission vehicles by 2035 at the latest, as well as putting in place policies that will enable, accelerate, or otherwise incentivise the transition to zero emission vehicles as soon as possible, to the extent possible given our jurisdictional powers.

D. As automotive manufacturers, we will work towards reaching 100% zero emission new car and van sales in leading markets by 2035 or earlier, supported by a business strategy that is in line with achieving this ambition, as we help build customer demand.

E. As business fleet owners and operators, or shared mobility platforms, we will work towards 100% of our car and van fleets being zero emission vehicles by 2030, or earlier where markets allow.

Notice how incredibly vague and non-binding all this language is. “Work towards,” “strengthen the collaboration,” “where markets allow.” There are no hard responsibilities, deadlines, or penalties to be seen anywhere in the document. “Working towards” a goal could mean nearly anything — our country can’t even commit to something that open-ended?

Thirty countries signed on to this declaration, including Britain, Canada, and India, as well as other nations from Europe and Africa. California and Washington State even signed on, doing on a state level what the federal government still refuses to do. The COP26 declarationi s already less stringent than California’s executive order on ICE vehicle sales, but sets a new bar for Washington.


Protesters, young enough to have to live through the consequences of climate change, protest outside COP26Photo: Jeff J Mitchell (Getty Images)

COP26 has been criticized and protested for its lax approach to making change. The conference aims to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a temperature that will already irreparably change the planet’s climate, and analysts claim that these new climate pledges won’t even come close to halting things there. If we can’t even sign on to a declaration that’s so lax as to be entirely ineffective, what chance do we have at actually making the changes necessary to let the planet survive?

Six automakers agree to climate pledge but VW, Toyota hold back

Volvo, Ford, GM, Mercedes, Jaguar Land Rover will sign COP26 commitment


BLOOMBERG


GLASGOW -- A group of countries, companies and cities committed to phasing out fossil-fuel vehicles by 2040, as part of efforts to cut carbon emissions and curb global warming.

But the world's top two automakers, Toyota and Volkswagen, as well as major car markets China, the U.S. and Germany, did not sign up, highlighting the challenges in shifting to zero emissions.

Stellantis was also missing from the latest pledge, as were Honda, Nissan, BMW and Hyundai.

The Glasgow Declaration on Zero Emission Cars and Vans, unveiled on Wednesday at climate talks in the Scottish city, sees the groups pledge to "rapidly" accelerate the transition to low-carbon emissions vehicles.

Headline signatories included Ford and General Motors, the world's second-most populous country India and major corporate purchasers of vehicles including Leaseplan, which rents 1.7 million cars in 30 countries.

GM said it is "proud to now stand alongside other companies, governments and civil society organizations to support the declaration to commit to working towards a transition to 100 percent zero emissions vehicles by 2035."

Ford confirmed its participation and said: "It will take everyone working together to be successful."

Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, BYD and Jaguar Land Rover, were also set to sign the commitment.

Volvo has already committed to going all-electric by 2030. The Jaguar brand will become all-electric starting in 2025. Ford has said its passenger car fleet in Europe will be all-electric by 2030. Mercedes has said it will be ready to go all-electric at the end of the decade, where market conditions allow.

VW Group CEO Herbert Diess said the proposed phase-out of internal combustion engine cars by 2040 was "not doable."

"We need raw materials, new mines, a circular economy. Battery capacity and building renewable energy grids across Europe will be the bottleneck," Diess said Wednesday during an online conference organized by German newspaper Handelsblatt.

VW brand has so far committed to producing only full-electric vehicles in Europe from 2035, and having a CO2-neutral fleet globally by 2050.

Cars, trucks, ships, buses, and planes account for about a quarter of all global carbon emissions, data from the International Energy Agency showed, of which the bulk comes from road vehicles.

The apparent unwillingness of Germany, along with China, the world's largest car market, and the U.S. -- the world's largest economy and second-largest car market -- to join the pledge raises questions about its effectiveness.

A German environment spokesman said the country's government would not sign because it had not reached internal consensus on a "marginal aspect" of the pledge concerning whether fuels made from renewable energy but burned in a combustion engine could form part of the solution.

Sources said that while the U.S. is not joining the pledge, key car-buying states such as California and New York have signed up.

An auto industry source said some automakers are wary of the pledge because it commits them to a costly shift in technology but lacks a similar commitment from governments to ensure that the necessary charging and grid infrastructure would be built to support electric vehicles.

In the summer, the European Commission proposed an effective ban on fossil-fuel vehicles by 2035, accompanied by a commitment to charging infrastructure that automakers had demanded.

COP26: meat eating is a big climate issue – but isn’t getting the attention it deserves


Cows in the Amazon: beef farming is the main cause of deforestation. 

Paralaxis / Alamy

November 9, 2021 

UK prime minister Boris Johnson launched the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow with the mantra of “coal, cars, cash and trees”. But thus far the summit has largely ignored the elephant in the room. Or rather, the cows, pigs, chickens and fish.

The global food system is currently responsible for about a quarter of all human made greenhouse gases, a figure that is projected to increase. The increase in food system emissions alone threatens warming above 1.5℃. There is no doubt we need to stop burning fossil fuels, but reducing livestock consumption in high- and middle-income countries is also vital to both protect the climate and restore nature.

Governments at COP26 have pledged to halt deforestation and cut methane emissions 30% by 2030. Eating lots of meat is a big driver of both, but so far no reduction targets have been announced. The pledge to protect nature signed by 45 governments didn’t mention meat consumption at all, while the US agriculture secretary claimed in an interview that Americans don’t need to produce or eat less meat at all.

Here are four reasons why less meat (and dairy) on our plates needs to be on the table at COP26.

1. Livestock have high carbon footprints

It is not very efficient to feed plants to livestock when we could eat the plants directly ourselves. Even though cows, sheep and goats can eat grass, unlike humans, they still need lots of land for grazing which could otherwise store more carbon dioxide as natural forests, grasslands or bogs, or in some cases be used to grow plant crops for human consumption. These animals also produce substantial amounts of methane in their digestive systems, which is a powerful greenhouse gas.

The carbon footprint of beef and lamb is roughly three times higher than that of pork, poultry or farmed fish per 100g of protein, and 24 times higher than pulses such as beans and lentils. Livestock produces just 18% of global calories and 37% of protein, but is responsible for more than half of food’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Small amounts of meat and dairy have a role in sustainable food systems, while some plants have quite high environmental impacts and some nuts use lots of water. But in general, even meat with the lowest carbon footprints still has higher emissions than the highest emitting plant-based foods which are high in protein.

Beef and lamb are by far the most carbon-intensive sources of protein. Some nuts can even be carbon negative, if the nut trees are grown on former croplands. 

Data: Poore and Nemecek, Science; Chart: Our World in Data, CC BY-SA

2. Reducing livestock production would protect nature

Farmland takes up 50% of Earth’s habitable land, and the vast majority of that farmland is used for livestock and their feed. Farming is the leading cause of natural habitat loss, which is the biggest threat to wildlife. Beef production is the top driver of tropical forest loss.

Eating more meat means that more natural habitat needs to be cleared and deforested, and the diets of people in high- and middle-income countries can be key drivers of global deforestation. Conversely, reducing meat consumption would free up land which could be restored to benefit people and wildlife, and store carbon.

Meat production requires land, animal feed, water and other resources. 

Poberezhna / shutterstock

3. Meat production has quadrupled since the 1960s

Since 1961, meat production worldwide has quadrupled as meat supply per person has almost doubled (from 23kg to more than 43kg) and the human population has more than doubled (from 3 billion to 7 billion).

The number of animals slaughtered each year has consequently skyrocketed. The number of chickens killed each year has increased tenfold since the 1960s (from 6.6 billion to 68.8 billion), pigs have almost quadrupled (0.4 billion to 1.5 billion) and cows have increased from 0.2 billion to 0.3 billion.

Meat consumption is also very unevenly distributed. Just as richer countries tend to have higher greenhouse gas emissions, they also tend to eat more meat. For example, the average US citizen is supplied with 124kg of meat a year, whereas in China, Nigeria and India it’s 61kg, 7kg and 4kg respectively.

A map of global meat supply looks similar to a map of carbon footprints or average incomes. FAO / Our World in Data, CC BY-SA
4. More sustainable means more healthy

Healthy and sustainable diets broadly overlap: diets with small amounts of red and processed meat, and high in vegetables, wholegrains and pulses. There are some important exceptions: oily fish benefits health but the fuel used by fishing boats means it generally has higher greenhouse gas emissions than plant-based proteins, while many fish populations are overfished. Sugar, on the other hand, has a relatively low environmental impact but doesn’t have any nutritional value besides calories.

The Planetary Health Diet – a healthy diet designed to minimise environmental damage – recommends on average three small portions of meat, two small portions of fish and seven glasses of milk a week. However, many of the poorest people in low-income countries eat less meat and fish than this or don’t have access to healthy alternative foods. They could benefit from increasing, not decreasing, the amount of animal products they eat. This makes it even more vital that people eating lots of meat, fish and dairy cut back.

There are many different policies that could make healthy and sustainable diets more accessible. These include removing subsidies for livestock farming, helping livestock farmers to transition to alternative farming systems, making menus mostly plant-based, and promoting behaviour changes through prominent positioning and cheaper prices for healthy and sustainable food. Education and public information – while important – won’t be enough by themselves. We need to step up to the plate: the planet depends on it.

This story is part of The Conversation’s coverage on COP26, the Glasgow climate conference, by experts from around the world.

Amid a rising tide of climate news and stories, The Conversation is here to clear the air and make sure you get information you can trust. More.

Author

Emma Garnett
Sustainability Research Fellow, University of Cambridge
Disclosure statement
Emma Garnett would like to thank Gianna Huhn and Amy Munroe-Faure for comments on this piece.

World leaders shy away from tackling food, farming emissions at COP26

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'We need to take a close look at ourselves in our own

 practices,' says Ontario farmer attending climate talks

Kyle Bakx · CBC News · Posted: Nov 10, 2021

A full vegan breakfast is prepared at Picnic, a café in Glasgow, which is playing host to the COP26 climate talks. (Kyle Bakx/CBC)

When Nick Morrow decided to go vegan eight years ago, he wasn't thinking about climate change.

Instead, he was motivated by the health benefits after his dad had suffered a severe stroke — and as an animal lover, he was also concerned about how livestock were treated.

Since opening the Picnic, a café in Glasgow that is one of the city's most popular vegan restaurants, he's noticed how a plant-based diet has become mainstream, with more choices on store shelves and better labelling on menus and packaging.

While the environment was far from his mind when he decided to ditch meat and dairy, Morrow said it's often the impetus for why people these days make the dietary switch.

And with Glasgow hosting the COP26 climate conference this month, Morrow said he can only shake his head as world leaders discuss many issues related to global warming — but avoid talk of food production or agriculture generally.

"Most people who are vegan are very mindful of the fact that animal agriculture, in regards to CO2 emissions, is pretty much the elephant in the room," said Morrow.

Or as some plant-based advocates describe it — the "cow in the room." 

The menus at COP26 list various food options, along with the price and the carbon footprint of each meal. (Kyle Bakx/CBC)

They say a change in our diets can help to solve climate change.

"The scale and speed of the shift that is needed to halt and reverse the climate damage caused by livestock demands world leaders to take decisive action," said Sean Mackenney, with the Humane Society International.

"COP26 has been framed as a Race to Zero. But in its refusal to set ambitious targets and strategies to meaningfully reduce the kinds of impacts of animal agriculture, it is more like a gentle Sunday stroll," he said.

The Conference of Parties (COP) meets every year and is the global decision-making body set up in the 1990s to implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and subsequent climate agreements.

Regardless of plant- or animal-based agriculture, the marginalization of the subject at COP26 mirrors how governments around the world are often hesitant to address the sector's climate impacts.

In Canada, farmers are often spared from some parts of the carbon tax, because governments decide to provide exemptions on things like farm fuel and natural gas to heat greenhouses.

When the federal government raised its methane-reduction goal last month, also announcing its support for the Global Methane Pledge, the focus was on emissions from the oilpatch.

For the agriculture industry, there are no regulations or federal targets in place, even though the sector is responsible for 29 per cent of Canada's total methane emissions.

Methane is a natural byproduct of cattle digestion, meaning it is emitted into the atmosphere every time a cow burps or farts. Experts say it's more complicated to tackle methane emissions from agriculture compared to oil and natural gas production.

Agriculture represents about 10 per cent of Canada's overall emissions, a figure which has remained relatively flat over the last few decades. Over that time, there have been fluctuations in the source of those emissions because of trends within the industry; major livestock populations peaked in 2005 before decreasing sharply until 2011, while fertilizer use is up 71 per cent since 2005.

In total, food production counts for about one-third of global emissions, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. At COP26, there are specific days focused on themes, such as energy, finance, transport, youth and cities; agriculture was mixed together with land and ocean management, under the theme of nature.

The COP26 conference includes more plant-based offerings compared to previous UN climate summits. (Kyle Bakx/CBC)

"I'm not sure … if that means politicians don't know what to do with agriculture and they don't know how to solve the problem, or whether they're afraid to jump into this talk with farmers," said Stuart Oke, a vegetable and flower farmer from Ontario who is in Glasgow representing the National Farmers Union at COP26.

After two significant floods in the last five years in the Ottawa region, Oke said he is concerned about what farming will be like in 20 or 30 years, as climate change causes more severe and frequent natural disasters.

Oke's message is that farmers want to be part of the solution and can make changes to reduce emissions, such as more efficient use of fertilizers. More support for research and technology will help, he said.

Livestock are central to the food system, he said, since even his farm uses animal manure. But he acknowledges that every part of the industry needs to be sustainable.

"We need to take a close look at ourselves in our own practices, and ask ourselves, like everybody should be, 'What can we do to be part of the solution here? And how can we help to adapt and make our firms and food system grow a lot more resilient than it is now?" he said.

WATCH | Why this Ontario farmer made the trip to Scotland for COP26:

Stuart Oke with the National Farmers Union says there are several ways the sector can reduce its emissions. 2:18

Certain farming practices, like zero tillage and the maintenance of grasslands, can act as a carbon sink and absorb some emissions. 

But these practices were estimated to have eliminated about four million tonnes of CO2 in 2019, compared to the more than 70 million tonnes generated by the agriculture industry as a whole, including the use of on-farm fuel. The production of ammonia for use in fertilizers increases that level of emissions by an extra two million tonnes, according to federal data.

Ottawa has also committed $200 million to a fund aimed at reducing emissions from agriculture and helping farmers adapt to climate change.

How 250 people helped rescue a man trapped for 53 hours in one of Britain's deepest caves

Injured caver slowly brought up 'a mile or two' by stretcher through steep, wet and winding passages

Author of the article:

Shari Kulha

Publishing date:

Nov 09, 2021  •  

The injured man lies in the blue stretcher as rescuers carefully traverse fast-flowing rivers and slippery surfaces. PHOTO BY SOUTH AND MID WALES RESCUE TEAM HANDOUT

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An injured man trapped underground in a cave in the famed Brecon Beacons hills has been rescued after a complex, two-day mission involving around 250 specialist rescuers.

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The man, thought to be in his 40s and an experienced caver, fell shortly after noon on Saturday while caving in Ogof Ffynnon Ddu near Penwyllt, a hamlet 30 kilometres northeast of Swansea in Wales

His injuries — a broken jaw, broken leg and damage to his spine — meant he wasn’t able to help himself. He is said to be in good condition in hospital in Swansea, having been brought out at about 7:45 p.m. on Monday.

A fellow caver called emergency services, and specialist cave and mountain rescuers — from across the U.K., some who also assisted in the Thai cave rescue in 2018 — also showed up. Of the 16 rescue teams in the British Isles, around 10 sent personnel to help, providing stretcher carrier support, preparing routes and bringing in supplies.

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Some 70 people assisted from underground, working in shifts to help carry him up using a stretcher, which had to be carried horizontally and vertically to manoeuvre through the passages.

The man was said to be in “remarkable spirits” throughout his ordeal.

“I spent two- to six-hour blocks with the injured caver and chatted to him most of the time,” Wales Online quotes Dr. Brendan Sloane of the British Cave Rescue Council. “Fair credit to the guy. He is a fit guy, and he is incredibly resilient.”

After he was lifted to the surface, he was clapped and cheered by rescuers helped into a cave-rescue Land Rover and transported down to a waiting ambulance. Foggy, wet conditions in the Brecon Beacons meant an air ambulance helicopter was unable to land.

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Spirits remained high in the SWCC headquarters, near the entrance to the cave, where dozens of rescuers huddled around hot drinks and food.

Teams of about 30 at a time set off from SWCC HQ up the mountain to the cave entrance to take over from their colleagues as they emerged into daylight. Some had been below ground for 12-hour stints, the Guardian reported.

Peter Francis, one of the rescuers and a member of the South Wales Caving Club (SWCC), told the BBC that the man was “an experienced, fit caver,” and his fall was just “incredibly unlucky,” Sky News said — “a matter of putting his foot in the wrong place at the wrong time,” when something moved out from under him.

His mental powers properly got him through

RESCUER PETER FRANCIS

The Ogof Ffynnon Ddu (The Cave of the Black Spring) system is one of the deepest and most complex in the U.K. and cavers need a permit from the SWCC to access it.

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The rescue mission took almost 55 hours, making it the longest cave rescue ever undertaken in Wales, according to the BBC, as Francis said the man “was a mile or two underground in an awkward place.”

The Ogof Ffynnon Ddu cave system is the third longest in Wales. Some of the caves in the system are 275 metres below ground and stretch for more than 50 km, according to Wales Online. It’s been described as “intestinal.”

https://mobile.twitter.com/khargaoasis/status/1457720098857398276

“We often say in caving that an hour of caving equates to 10 hours of carrying a stretcher,” said Gary Evans of the South and Mid Wales Cave Rescue Team. “The main point is that the amount of effort that goes into training our rescuers really pays off for an instance like this.”

Startcaving.com claims that high-risk cavers run a one-in-3,332 chance of dying, compared with one in 60 for base jumping and one in 100 for grand prix motor racing.

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“Its approx 61km of passages provide everything from huge chambers, beautiful formations, to yawning chasms and thundering river passages,” the SWCC says in an online description of the cave system.

“All the odds were against the caver, but his mental powers properly got him through,” Francis said. “He was in an awful lot of pain to begin with, until we could get the drugs to him.

“I’m absolutely impressed to no end how the teams worked together. A lot of them didn’t know each other and had never worked together before. And the fact they pulled this off — I’m absolutely thrilled.”

— with additional reporting by The Washington Post

Canada was just ranked the second-best country in the world

Canada's positive perception on the world stage is increasing according to a new poll that ranks the top "nation brands," or the public image of a country.

The 2021 Anholt-Ipsos Nation Brands Index (NBI) collected over 60,000 interviews online in 20 panel countries, ranking the top 60 countries by how they're viewed abroad.

The NBI has been ranking countries' reputations since 2005, and while Canada has always been a top-ten contender, we've been gaining ground in recent years.

This year's rankings are somewhat of a reversal from last year, as countries get back on their feet, repairing their reputations by kickstarting their lockdown-ravaged economies and tourism sectors.

Our influential, welcoming, low-crime country ranked quite well, moving up in this year's list to the #2 nation brand.

Some big shakeups can be seen in the 2021 NBI rankings, including gains for Canada. Image via Anholt-Ipsos.

Canada had landed in third place on the NBI for the past couple of years, though this year the country has bumped up one spot in global reputations, snatching the second-place spot away from the United Kingdom, which has slipped to fifth place in the rankings.



Canada moved up one spot in this year's 2021 NBI rankings. Image via Anholt-Ipsos.

Canada climbed from a ranking of 67.86 in 2020 to 70.64 in 2021, though this slight increase proved enough to push the maple leaf flag up to its new record of second place.

Though it wasn't enough to claim the overall top position, Canada still ranked first across the poll's governance, people, and immigration and investment indices, and still scored high in factors like exports, tourism, and culture.

Only Germany ranked better, holding onto its top spot for the fifth year in a row.

And while people see a rosy picture of Canada from abroad, our neighbour to the south is not looking as hospitable.

The United States' ranking declined sharply in 2020, falling from sixth to 10th place. And though their pandemic recovery and rising tourism have helped bring them back up to #8, the States still have some catching up to do. It was only just five years ago that the U.S. held the top ranking on this list.

BLOGTO

BLUE H2

Federal government putting $1.35 million into Alberta hydrogen projects

Author of the article:Lisa Johnson
Publishing date:Nov 09, 2021 •

Daniel Vandal, minister responsible for Prairies Economic Development Canada and minister responsible for the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, announces funding of $1.35 million through PrairiesCan to help modernize C-FER technologies to test their products and processes to demonstrate the value of Canadian-made technologies for the global hydrogen industry on Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021 in Edmonton. PHOTO BY GREG SOUTHAM /Postmedia


Ottawa is putting $1.35 million into helping Alberta companies engineer and test hydrogen fuel infrastructure, equipment and technologies.

Dan Vandal, federal minister in charge of Prairies Economic Development Canada (PrairiesCan), said Tuesday the funding will help Alberta companies get ahead in the rapidly growing hydrogen economy.

“We are investing in projects that provide entrepreneurs and provide businesses with the knowledge that they need, and the resources they need, to develop industry leading-edge hydrogen products and technologies,” Vandal said at his first announcement since being appointed minister two weeks ago.

C-FER Technologies, a non-profit subsidiary of government agency Alberta Innovates, provides experimental testing and specialized engineering consulting services out of Edmonton. It will use the federal funding to upgrade one of its facilities to help test new products and procedures for hydrogen transportation and storage.

Alberta Innovates is also chipping in $300,000. Combined with contributions from private companies, a total of $2.8 million is going towards the initiative.

Vandal estimated that 50 small and medium-sized energy companies will benefit from the program.

Kirk Hamilton, C-FER’s senior engineering adviser, said a key challenge is for the industry to develop the necessary infrastructure to move hydrogen once it’s generated.

“It is important to understand the compatibility of legacy and new equipment with hydrogen and hydrogen-natural gas blends,” he said.

The funding will also provide a boost for upcoming projects that include evaluating existing natural gas pipeline systems for transporting hydrogen, developing new technologies for underground hydrogen storage, and demonstrating new infrastructure for exporting to foreign markets.

Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, a former Liberal cabinet minister, said in the PrairiesCan news release the city supports local tech companies like C-FER.

“(They) will accelerate the transition to a new energy economy that will create jobs, attract workers and talent to Edmonton, all while growing our economy,” he said.

Vandal said he met with Sohi earlier Tuesday morning, was meeting with local industry leaders in the afternoon, and his office had been in contact with the provincial government.

“My goal and objective, certainly in the future, is to work with the elected officials of the legislature of Alberta and I’m very much looking forward to that,” said Vandal.

While there were no provincial ministers at the announcement, Jobs, Economy and Innovation Minister Doug Schweitzer said in the news release diversifying the energy sector is important to the province’s economic recovery plan.

“Alberta is already a world leader in hydrogen production, and through investments like this, we will retain that leadership as we accelerate innovative technology solutions that will help grow our clean hydrogen production to meet national and international demand,” said Schweitzer, who attended the announcement of a new business accelerator in Calgary Tuesday morning.

Alberta’s natural gas and electricity associate minister Dale Nally has been prominent at previous provincial hydrogen industry-related announcements, including with the release of a hydrogen road map last Friday.

Nally’s office did not directly respond to Postmedia’s question about why he did not attend.

Taylor Hides, Nally’s press secretary, said in a statement Tuesday they are happy to see the federal government investing in Alberta’s economy and to have Alberta Innovates represent the province.

Laura Kilcrease, CEO of Alberta Innovates, said in a release that the support from PrairiesCan will enable entrepreneurs and businesses to accelerate the development of hydrogen technology.

Alberta’s map sets the province’s sights on exporting blue hydrogen — which is produced from natural gas through carbon capture and storage technology — globally by 2030. The federal hydrogen strategy, first released last December , similarly embraces blue hydrogen as the favourite for large-scale, low-cost production.

lijohnson@postmedia.com