Ag deserves election focus, say hog producers

By Karen Briere

WESTERN PRODUCER
Published: September 2, 2021


Canadian Pork Council chair Rick Bergmann said he hasn’t heard agriculture mentioned at all and hopes party leaders will step up and recognize the importance of a safe and secure food supply. | File photo


Election ’21: Pork council wants African swine fever action plan to be at the top of the agenda for federal politicians

Canada’s pork producers say their industry and agriculture as a whole should have already been a focus of the current federal election campaign.

Canadian Pork Council chair Rick Bergmann said he hasn’t heard agriculture mentioned at all and hopes party leaders will step up and recognize the importance of a safe and secure food supply.

“I would think keeping Canadians fed and having food security would be a priority,” he said.

Instead, he said it seems like the industry is still being taken for granted.

The council last week released a list of election priorities it hopes will get some attention.

Chief among them is a $50 million pan-Canadian action plan on African swine fever. The federal and provincial ministers have had ASF on their meeting agendas for a few years now. Bergmann said the federal decision to use detection dogs at airports is positive but with decreased travel during the pandemic that risk was lower.

Now that travel is resuming, and the disease has been found in the Dominican Republic, he said the concern is rising again. There has been lots of talk on a full plan but now it’s time to mitigate the potential risk and deal with Canada’s wild boar problem, too.

ASF would cause a minimum hit of $24 billion, Bergmann said.

“It’s time for the rubber to hit the road,” he said.

The CPC also wants a business risk management program that works and Bergmann said it’s time for Ottawa and the provinces to agree.

“They’ve been at it for eight years,” he pointed out.

Canadian producers must be able to depend on their governments the way producers in other countries can.

The council has asked for Ottawa to establish a senior representative in Beijing to deal with trade barriers. China is the world’s largest pork importer but has delisted 65 percent of Canadian processors, said Bergmann. That must be rectified.

The pork industry brings in $5 billion in exports each year; that’s new money into the economy.

Bergmann also pointed out that the pork industry would like some equal treatment when it comes to the carbon tax. In Manitoba, for example, the tax on a finished hog is about $1.50 right now and would rise to $6.50 by 2030.

“That can make producers make a decision to step away from production,” he said.

Bergmann wonders why some parts of agriculture are “outside the penalty box” when it comes to the carbon tax but pork producers are not. He urged federal candidates to pledge to work side-by-side with industry to come up with solutions rather than penalize them.

The CPC has also called for a foot-and-mouth vaccine data bank to be established and help to gain greater access to skilled labour the industry needs.

Bergmann added that major world issues are taking centre stage right now but in a short campaign agricultural leaders have to step up and remind Canadian politicians that producers are the source of what all of society needs. Protecting that source is critical.

Flax processor to close in Manitoba

NATIONALIZE IT UNDER FARMER WORKER CONTROL

By Robert Arnason
WESTERN PRODUCER
Published: September 2, 2021

The Winkler plant converts flax straw into flax tow — the raw material for cigarette papers. The flax tow from Winkler was shipped in SVM's cigarette paper plant in New Jersey. 

| File photo

A flax-processing plant in southern Manitoba will shut its doors at the end of 2021.

Schweitzer Maudit, SVM, a materials company that manufactures papers, adhesive tapes, resins, nets and other products, has operated its Manitoba plant since 1985.

A company representative confirmed it will close in four months.

“We have made the decision to close our Winkler facility (which includes both sites of Winkler and Carman), with an anticipated closure date of Dec. 31, 2021,” the SVM spokesperson said in an email.

The Winkler plant converts flax straw into tow — the raw material for cigarette papers. The flax tow from Winkler was shipped to SVM’s cigarette paper plant in New Jersey


In late 2020, SVM stopped operating its New Jersey facility.

“(The closure) was driven by a key customer’s decision to source a different product that did not fit the capabilities of the Spotswood (New Jersey) location,” the company rep said. “Although SVM pursued alternative business models that would allow us to continue to operate our Winkler facility, we were unable to find an option that could successfully sustain our operation.”

SVM has already contacted farmers who supply the Manitoba plant with flax straw.

In 2010, the federal and Manitoba governments invested about $600,000 into an expansion of SVM flax processing in southern Manitoba. The company also invested $485,000.

SVM operates in Brazil, China, Europe and North America. In 2020, it reported revenue of US$1.07 billion.

Tornado latest challenge for young Sask. farmer

By Karen Briere
WESTERN PRODUCER
Published: September 2, 2021

A tornado caused considerable damage on Trenton Zakaluzny’s farm near Hodgeville, Sask., last week. | Trenton Zakaluzny photo

Debris was scattered for miles, grain bins punctured, equipment tossed and windows in most of the equipment and vehicles blown out

Trenton Zakaluzny’s plan to take over the family farm as his father eases up has been hit by one blow after another.

Two floods, a devastating fire last winter, this year’s drought and then last week an EF-2 tornado that destroyed most of the yard and equipment on the farm south of Hodgeville, Sask., all have the 25-year-old wondering if the dream will become reality.

“Between the fire and the tornado, whatever I have in the house is kind of what’s left,” he said.

Environment Canada’s preliminary assessment of the tornado pegged the winds at 180 km-h. Three other tornados were either confirmed or suspected last week.

The Zakaluzny farm was hardest hit. Debris was scattered for miles, grain bins punctured, equipment tossed and windows in most of the equipment and vehicles blown out. Two neighbours also experienced some damage.

Trenton’s dad Eugene was in the farmhouse when the twister hit. He looked out the window to see fuel tanks whizzing by.

“He went to the other window and bins were rolling through, sheds flying away,” said Trenton.

Fortunately Eugene wasn’t hurt.

Trenton had planted his first crop on his own this year, a quarter-section of green lentils. The farm includes 1,600 acres and the plan was for Trenton to slowly do more and more of the work. He said that seems impossible now.

“Pretty much everything that could get wrecked, did,” he said.

It has already been a trying few years.

He had just started on off-farm job in Saskatoon in mid-August after the drought made it apparent that the crops weren’t going to do well this year. He has a grain vac business that has also been slow.

The family had to repair the house after two years of floods and this past January, during the windstorm of Jan. 13, an electrical fire burned two of their heated sheds and destroyed equipment and vehicles inside them.

Zakaluzny doesn’t know what’s going to happen to this year’s harvest. He and his dad have no usable harvesting equipment and while neighbours are offering to help, he said they have their own harvest to do, too. | Trenton Zakaluzny photo

Trenton said he has lost most of his personal belongings in these disastrous events.

He doesn’t know what’s going to happen to this year’s harvest. He and his dad have no usable harvesting equipment and while neighbours are offering to help, he said they have their own harvest to do, too.

Support has come in the form of meals and offers to help clean the glass and debris that covers the farmyard.

A GoFundMe campaign organized by a friend has surpassed its original goal of $10,000 and continues to climb.

However, Trenton said the cost to actually replace everything will be so much more that he isn’t sure they can even try. Not everything was insured and personal items, such as photographs, can’t be replaced

.

The Zakaluzny farm was hardest hit. Debris was scattered for miles, grain bins punctured, equipment tossed and windows in most of the equipment and vehicles blown out. | Trenton Zakaluzny photo

“It can’t happen overnight; it takes years to build that up,” he said. “It’s tough to see it all go.”

That said, he refuses to say they will quit, only that they are “running out of options.”

Looking at the destruction in every corner of the farmyard is “too much.” The clean-up will take a long time, and he said it’s not like there is even a shop where equipment could be fixed. There are no tools or parts; they’ve been scattered for miles.

Everything that has happened in the last four years is starting to take its toll.

“Losing everything you have makes you want to take a step back,” he said, adding it’s particularly hard on his father.

“It’s not something you want to quit doing, but it doesn’t really leave him an option at this point in time. Insurance only covers so much,” he said.

CANADA
Exports to drop as crop shrinks

By Sean Pratt
WESTERN PRODUCE
Published: September 2, 2021


Lyle Kabatoff loads canola at the Odelein family farm near Quill Lake, Sask., that was destined for Cargill’s crushing plant at Clavet, Sask. There is concern that this year’s drought-reduced crop will mainly be used domestically, leaving foreign customers short of supply. | William DeKay photo


Canada’s crop exports are forecast to plummet 39 percent this year, leaving importers scrambling for product from alternative suppliers.

Total exports of grains, oilseeds, pulses and special crops are forecast at 36 million tonnes, down from 59 million tonnes last year, according to Agriculture Canada.

That would be the smallest export program since 2006-07 when Canada shipped out 35.9 million tonnes.

Production of all crops is expected to fall by 27 million tonnes due to drought.

That is in line with the satellite-based yield and production forecast for a 25 million tonne decline issued by Statistics Canada four days after the Ag Canada outlook.

Saskatchewan farm groups are calling on members of the Western Grain Elevator Association to eliminate administration fees and reduce penalties for the 2021-22 growing season.

“Many farmers’ yields across the Prairies will be well below their crop insurance coverage and they will be unable to deliver on even modest grain contracts,” the groups stated in a joint news release.

Farmers are not the only ones fretting about the short crop.

Jim Everson, president of the Canola Council of Canada, said exports are likely going to take it on the chin this year. That has to be making importers anxious.

Agriculture Canada is forecasting seven million tonnes of canola exports, down from 10.9 million tonnes last year.

Everson said Japan, the United States, China and Mexico will take the lion’s share of Canada’s vastly reduced export program.

“They will continue to be the key markets for canola in an environment where we don’t have the kind of supplies we’ve had in previous years,” he said.

Other customers will seek alternative suppliers or will be forced to substitute competing oilseeds.

Everson believes domestic crush should fare much better than the export side of the business.

Canola oil prices are sky-high due to robust demand from the recovering restaurant sector and the biofuel industry. That means attractive crush margins.

“We would expect processing to be robust through next year,” he said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts 9.5 million tonnes of Canadian canola crush, down from 10.4 million tonnes last year. Agriculture Canada is less optimistic, forecasting eight million tonnes.

Dorab Mistry, director of Godrej International, said the canola situation could be far worse than the yield and production numbers indicate because he has heard from his Canadian industry contacts that oil content is also dismal.

“That is really a worry,” he said during a presentation at a conference organized by the U.S. Soybean Export Council.

“The lack of precipitation and high temperatures have crimped the oil content of canola seed this year.

Agriculture Canada pegged wheat, durum and barley exports at 17.2 million tonnes, which would be about half of last year’s program for those three crops.

Daniel Ramage, director of market access and trade policy with Cereals Canada, warned that the jury is still out on how big the crop will be.

“It is still early in the harvest,” he said.

Ramage noted that the USDA is forecasting 24 million tonnes of Canadian all-wheat production, while the International Grains Council is using 24.5 million tonnes.

Those estimates are well above Statistics Canada’s 22.95 million tonnes and Agriculture Canada’s 20.2 million tonnes.

The trade has mixed views about the Agriculture Canada number.

“Some people in the trade are more optimistic. Some think that it is close to reality. There is a range of opinions,” he said.

Customers have plenty of alternatives for sourcing wheat but there are problems elsewhere around the world as well.

SovEcon is now forecasting 33.9 million tonnes of Russian exports, down from 38.5 million tonnes last year. Kazakhstan is also dealing with a short crop. And U.S. spring wheat yields are forecast to be down 37 percent.

Canada’s pea exports are expected to fall to 2.45 million tonnes, down from 3.65 million tonnes last year. Lentil shipments are forecast at two million tonnes, down from 2.4 million tonnes.

Mac Ross, director of market access and trade policy with Pulse Canada, said Agriculture Canada’s and Statistics Canada’s production estimates are generally lower than many analysts were forecasting.

But he has no doubt that exports will be way down compared to last year.

That could be a big problem for overseas buyers because Canada is a major player in pulse markets.

For instance, Canada has a 95 percent share of China’s pea import business. China may be forced to grant access to competitors like Russia and Ukraine.

Meanwhile, red lentil prices continue to rise in markets like India and Turkey, which both have short crops. India recently slashed its import tariff on lentils.

Those markets may have to turn to Australia but Australia is forecast to harvest 588,000 tonnes of lentils, down seven percent from last year. Private forecasters think it will be larger than that.

The one potential upside to moving a smaller crop is that there should be fewer logistical headaches for shippers.

That is in an ideal world. But today’s transportation system is far from ideal due to a container crisis that is holding many shippers of pulses and special crops hostage, said Ross.

“That more than anything has been the biggest thorn in our side,” he said.

 Physics

Quantum of solace: even physicists are still scratching their heads

Readers respond to an editorial about understanding quantum theory and defining the laws of physics

Richard Feynman (left) with fellow theoretical physicist Yang Chen Ning, pictured in the 1950s. Photograph: Science & Society Picture Library/SSPL via Getty Images

Letters

Fri 3 Sep 2021 15.41 BST

Your editorial on quantum physics (30 August) starts with a quote from Richard Feynman – “nobody understands quantum mechanics” – and then says “that is no longer true”. One of us (Norman Dombey) was taught quantum theory by Feynman at Caltech; the other (John Charap) was taught by Paul Dirac at Cambridge. Quantum theory was devised by several physicists including Dirac, Erwin Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg in the 1920s and 1930s, and Dirac made their work relativistic.

It is absurd to say that quantum mechanics is now understood whereas it was not 50 years ago. There have of course been advances in our understanding of quantum phenomena, but the conceptual framework of quantum physics remains as it was. The examples you give of nuclear plants, medical scans and lasers involve straightforward applications of quantum mechanics that were understood 50 years ago.

The major advance in the understanding of quantum physics in this period is a theorem of John Bell from Cern, which states that quantum physics cannot be local – that is to say that it permits phenomena to be correlated at arbitrarily large distances from each other. This has now been demonstrated experimentally and leads to what is known as quantum entanglement, which is important in the development of quantum computers. But even these ideas were discussed by Albert Einstein and coworkers in 1935.

The editorial goes on to say that “subatomic particles do not travel a path that can be plotted”. If that were so, how can protons travel at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern and hit their target so that experiments can be performed?

We agree with Phillip Ball, who wrote in Physics World that “quantum mechanics is still, a century after it was conceived, making us scratch our heads”. There are many speculative proposals in contention but none have consensus support.
John Charap Emeritus professor of theoretical physics, Queen Mary University of London; Norman Dombey Emeritus professor of theoretical physics, University of Sussex

 Whoever wrote this editorial does not understand what Richard Feynman meant when he said that nobody really understands quantum mechanics. Being able to make a smartphone, a nuclear weapon or an MRI machine does not require understanding quantum mechanics in the sense he meant – it requires the physical chops to set up the equations and the mathematical chops to find or approximate solutions to them. Any competent physicist has been able to do those calculations for at least 50 years. What Feynman meant was that, for quantum mechanics, nobody has the kind of intuitive understanding of what is actually happening in the world that physicists seek to gain. All we can do is shut up and calculate, or get lost in a never-never land of competing but empirically equivalent interpretations.

Perhaps Carlo Rovelli’s relational interpretation of quantum mechanics provides the intuitive understanding we’d like to have, although I rather doubt it, and I don’t believe Rovelli claims it does. Perhaps it even makes testable predictions that could distinguish it from other interpretations and thus is science rather than philosophy (I have no objection to philosophy).

It is just as true today as it was when Feynman said it in 1964 that nobody (or almost nobody) really understands quantum mechanics. And now, as then, a competent physicist does not need the kind of understanding Feynman meant to use the theory. Indeed, there’s no strong reason to believe that the human mind should be equipped to understand it at all. To quote another famous physicist: this editorial is not even wrong.
Tim Bradshaw
North Tawton, Devon

 While it’s highly probable that the position of my copy of Helgoland is where I shelved it, I won’t know whether its pages are printed or blank until I get round to reading it. However, from Prof Rovelli’s previous work, I agree “the fundamental truth is that it’s impossible to know everything about the world”, including whether this letter will be published and in what world.
Harold Mozley
York

 Given your editorial on quantum physics, is the strapline now “facts are relatively sacred” or “facts are sacred but relative”?
Simon Taylor
Warwick, Warwickshire

Climate change deniers are as slippery as those who justified the slave trade

Nick Cohen

Global warming sceptics should be hiding in corners. But still some defend the indefensible


Former Conservative party minister Nigel Lawson, photographed on 11 May 2016. 

Sat 4 Sep 2021 

No one seems as defeated as the global warming “deniers” who dominated rightwing thinking a decade ago. Like late 18th-century opponents of abolishing the slave trade, Lord Lawson and the claque of Conservative cranks who filled the comment pages of the Tory press are remembered today as dangerous fools – assuming they are remembered at all.

The billions of dollars spent by the fossil fuel industry on propaganda and its acceptance by know-nothing elements on the right caused incalculable damage. They might have followed Margaret Thatcher, who warned in 1989 of C02 admissions leading to climate change “more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known”. The desire of business to protect profits and the vanity of politicians and pundits, who saw themselves as dissidents fighting the consensus rather than fanatics enabling destruction, helped to waste two decades of valuable time.

Every argument they advanced has been disproved, as much by the experience of everyday life as science. Journalists are advised: “If someone says it is raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the window and find out which is true.” The world only had to look at the weather outside to know who was trying to fool it.

To pick from the dozens of examples in Richard Black’s history of the conspiracy theory (Denied: The Rise and Fall of Climate Contrarianism) , global warming is not a “swindle”, as a Channel 4 documentary informed its viewers in 2007. Glaciers and ice sheets are shrinking and the seas are becoming more acidic. If there was swindling, it was at Channel 4, as Ofcom suggested when it found the station guilty of several breaches of the broadcasting rules. It is not “erroneous” to assume that humanity is driving the climate catastrophe, as the Spectator assured its readers as late as 2017. The pace of man-made climate change is faster than anything in the Earth’s history and all attempts to invent other explanations have failed.

Viscount Ridley, who presided over the collapse of Northern Rock, and now dismisses the collapse of the planet in the pages of the Times, said climate change was doing “more good than harm”. We should adapt to a warmer Earth and celebrate the reduction in deaths from the winter cold. But the seas and icecaps cannot adapt, nor can cities threatened with flooding and countries facing desertification. The lights did not go out as we switched to renewable energy, as so many pundits said they would. And energy bills have fallen rather than risen, despite the assertions of the noble Lawson to the contrary. Rightwing denialism appears buried so deep in the dustbin of history it can never be recycled.

And yet there is nervousness among the impressively large number of Conservative politicians who are serious about pushing for net zero. They are pleading with their colleagues to understand the advantages to consumers and businesses that a determined remaking of the economy would bring. The Conservative Environmental Network is already in a fight with a small group of rightwing MPs, who claim “the poorest will pay the highest price for net-zero fantasies” (even though no measure is more likely to reduce fuel poverty than a government home-insulation drive). That battle will only intensify.

I put “denier” in quotes at the top of this piece because the enemies of science (and of us all) are endlessly malleable shapeshifters. Once they can no longer deny the existence of man-made global warming, they shift and keet on shifting so no one can ever pin them down. In this, they mirror the defenders of slavery 230 years ago, who created the modern world’s first corporate PR campaign and provided an example for all who have followed.

The comparison isn’t harsh. One day, the attack on climate science will be seen as shocking as the defence of human bondage. Indeed, that day should have long passed. They are overwhelmingly old men or, in the case of Lawson, a very old man. They grew up in a 20th century where the carbon economy was natural: the way the world was and would always be. Slavery was equally natural to the plantation owners and slave traders of Georgian Britain. It had always existed, everywhere on Earth.

The 18th century had its Viscount Ridleys who opined that slavery did more good than harm. In 1789, during the hearings for the first abolition bill in history, one witness told parliament that Africans wanted to be enslaved and “nine out of 10 rejoice at falling into our hands”. The pro-slavery lobby was as well funded as the fossil-fuel lobby, and as relentless. The Telegraph comment pages did not exist in 1789 so it commissioned The Benevolent Planters by one Thomas Bellamy to appear at the Theatre Royal in London’s West End. The play told the story of Oran and Selima, lovers who are separated in Africa. Their capture by slavers is a blessing. Far from being oppressors, kind slave owners bring the couple together in the West Indies and allow them to live productive lives together.

William Wilberforce was assailed by claims that if Britain abolished slavery, “our manufactures will droop in consequence, our land-tax will be raised, our marine destroyed, while France, our natural enemy and rival, will strengthen herself by our weakness”. Today, Nick Timothy, the man who destroyed Theresa May’s premiership, tells Telegraph readers the British will be forced into penury by “net-zero zealots” while other countries “break their promises” and profit from our naivety.

In the 18th and 21st centuries, as soon as one fake position was exposed, another took its place. The arguments change. The intent remains the same.

It remains an open question as to whether Boris Johnson secretly shares a denialist intent. Conservative environmentalists look on him with approval as he prepares to host the Cop26 climate change conference in November. He says all the right things, but the investment and political will needed to electrify transport, reduce meat eating and refit the housing stock are nowhere to be seen. Denialism is a shapeshifter. Its latest form may be a bombastic prime minister who promises the Earth but does next to nothing to protect it.



Nick Cohen is an Observer columnist

 

Australia Prepares For Offshore Wind
Boom

Reuters

September 2, 2021

By Sonali Paul (Reuters)– Australia’s conservative government introduced legislation on Thursday that could help clear the way for offshore wind farms to go ahead in a country considered to have massive offshore renewable energy potential.

The long-awaited legislation will set up a framework for building, running, maintaining, and decommissioning offshore electricity projects including wind generation and transmission cables, with environmental and financial safeguards.

“An offshore electricity industry in Australia will further strengthen our economy, create jobs and opportunities for Australians and enhance the delivery of affordable and reliable power,” Energy Minister Angus Taylor said in a statement.

Projects that could progress if the legislation passes, as expected, include the Star of the South wind project off the coast of Victoria, the Marinus Link transmission line from Tasmania to Victoria, and Sun Cable, which plans to deliver solar power from the Northern Territory to Singapore.

“This legislation is a key step to realizing Australia’s offshore wind potential and unlocking the associated economic benefits, including providing opportunities for the nation’s strong resources and maritime sectors,” Star of the South Chief Executive Casper Frost Thorhauge said in a statement.

There are more than 10 proposed offshore wind projects with a combined capacity of more than 25 gigawatts (GW), a recent government research report said, adding that with a coastline of almost 60,000 km (37,283 miles) with “very high wind resources”, it made sense to consider developing an offshore wind industry.

Onshore wind farms with a combined capacity of 7.4 GW supplied nearly 10% of Australia’s power in 2020, with a further 21 onshore wind farms with a total capacity of 4 GW due to start construction.

The legislation has widespread support from the opposition Labor Party, unions, and green groups, in stark contrast to most of the government’s other energy proposals, which are seen as supporting gas and coal to the detriment of renewable energy.

“Australia’s wind capacity has been likened to the North Sea – an area that’s leading the world in offshore wind generation. Investing in and growing this industry is a no-brainer for Australia, but it needs to be done right,” said Climate Council spokesperson Madeline Taylor.

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021

'MAYBE'TECH

Better Than Batteries? A Startup That’s Storing Energy in Concrete Blocks Just Raised $100 Million
By Vanessa Bates Ramirez
-Sep 01, 2021


The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its Sixth Assessment Report in early August, and the outlook isn’t good. The report has added renewed urgency to humanity’s effort to curb climate change.

The price of solar energy dropped 89 percent in 10 years, and new wind farms are being built both on land and offshore (with ever-bigger turbines capable of generating ever more energy). But simply adding more wind and solar generation capacity won’t get us very far if we don’t have a cost-effective, planet-friendly way to store the energy they produce.

As Zia Huque, general partner at Prime Movers Lab, put it, “To truly harness the power of renewable energy, the world needs to develop reliable, flexible storage solutions for when the sun does not shine or the wind does not blow.”

A startup called Energy Vault is working on a unique storage method, and they must be on the right track, because they just received over $100 million in Series C funding last week.

The method was inspired by pumped hydro, which has been around since the 1920s and uses surplus generating capacity to pump water up into a reservoir. When the water is released, it flows down through turbines and generates energy just like conventional hydropower.

Now imagine the same concept, but with heavy solid blocks and a tall tower rather than water and a reservoir. When there’s excess power—on a sunny or windy day with low electricity demand, for example—a mechanical crane uses it to lift the blocks 35 stories into the air. Then the blocks are held there until demand is outpacing supply. When they’re lowered to the ground (or lowered a few hundred feet through the air), their weight pulls cables that spin turbines, generating electricity.

“Heavy” blocks in this case means 35 tons (70,000 pounds or 31,751 kg). The blocks are made of a composite material that uses soil and locally-sourced waste, which can include anything from concrete debris and coal ash to decommissioned wind turbine blades (talk about coming full circle). Besides putting material that would otherwise go into a landfill to good use, this also means the blocks can be made locally, and thus don’t need to be transported (and imagine the cost and complexity of transporting something that heavy, oy).

The cranes that lift and lower the blocks have six arms, and they’re controlled by fully-automated custom software. Energy Vault says the towers will have a storage capacity up to 80 megawatt-hours, and be able to continuously discharge 4 to 8 megawatts for 8 to 16 hours. The technology is best suited for long-duration storage with very fast response times.

The Series C funding was led by Prime Movers Lab, with existing investors SoftBank and Saudi Aramco adding additional funds and several new investors joining. Energy Vault plans to use the funding to roll out its EVx platform, launched in April of this year. The platform includes performance enhancements like round-trip efficiency up to 85 percent, a lifespan of over 35 years, and a flexible, modular design that’s shorter than the original—which means it could more easily be built in or near densely-populated areas.

Huque called Energy Vault a “gamechanger” in the transition to green energy, saying the company “has cracked the code with a transformative solution…designed to fulfill clean energy demand 24/7 with a more efficient, durable, and environmentally sustainable approach.”

The company will roll out its EVx platform in the US late this year, moving on to fulfill contracts in Europe, the Middle East, and Australia in 2022.

Image Credit: Energy Vault

CLEAN POWER

Vietnamese Solar Power Plant Could Reach 2.8 Gigawatts Soon

ByZachary Shahan
Published2 days ago

As we wrote in May, Vietnam has become a surprising solar power champion in the past year. Well, it shot into the role in December 2020. And it seems that it’s happy to keep going. Recent news is that the largest solar park in Vietnam is set to get a big boost and get even significantly larger by early 2022.

An 832 megawatt (MW) expansion is planned for Xuan Thien Ea Sup, which will bring it to 2.8 gigawatts (GW)! The expansion plans actually didn’t come from a press release from Xuan Thien Group, the developer, but were revealed in a report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).

Furthermore, “Chinese panel supplier Longi Solar announced the 273 MW first phase of the VND20 trillion ($869 million) project had been completed five months ahead of schedule in November, after construction had started in April last year,” pv-magazine writes.

Regarding Vietnam’s overall solar boom, in May Johnna wrote, “In Vietnam, banks are shunning coal; enabling the nation to shine brightly as a solar champion. … Vietnam has seen a 100-fold increase in solar power over the last two years and now ranks seventh in the world in terms of total installed capacity, BloombergNEF noted. In 2020, the only countries that installed more solar than Vietnam were the U.S. and China! … In addition, the increasingly low prices of solar panels have created a cheap and convenient alternative. What’s more is that many of these solar panels are assembled domestically.”

Vietnam has certainly been one of the brightest solar success stories of the past couple of years. It looks as though that will continue, but I’m eager to see the 2021 numbers. And if Vietnam can bust out of the gates with solar like this, then what’s saying many other countries can’t? Who will follow Vietnam’s example and become a solar champion next?

'MAYBE'TECH

Oil and gas pipeline industry tries to reinvent itself with carbon capture plans

Funnelling CO2 from power plants, cement factories and refineries a potentially immense business opportunity

Author of the article:
Financial Times
Justin Jacobs in Houston
Publishing date:Sep 01, 2021 • 

Pipeline operators are pointing to their potential as a link in carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems, in which CO2 emissions are trapped in underground reservoirs where they can be kept out of the atmosphere.

 PHOTO BY COURTESY SHELL
Article content

The U.S. oil and gas pipeline industry is looking for new opportunities to lay steel in the ground with pipes that carry the carbon dioxide produced when fossil fuels are burnt.

The midstream energy sector has clashed with climate campaigners who oppose pipeline projects as infrastructure that locks in greenhouse gas emissions. Wall Street is pushing the industry to show how it will adapt to demands for a lower-carbon world.

In response, pipeline operators are pointing to their potential as a link in carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems, in which CO2 emissions are trapped in underground reservoirs where they can be kept out of the atmosphere. Pipelines would move CO2 from industrial flues to the reservoirs.

“It’s hard to see how climate objectives are met without pretty widespread carbon capture and sequestration,” Steven Kean, chief executive of Kinder Morgan, one of the largest U.S. pipeline companies, recently told analysts. “We think we’ve got the expertise on the pipeline side of it.”

CCS IS USED FOR FRACKING

The U.S. already has about 5,150 miles (8,300 km) of CO2 pipelines. The network is tiny compared with the national web of oil and gas pipes, but it is the largest in the world.

They are mostly clustered around the Permian Basin oilfields of west Texas, where CO2 is injected into wells to squeeze out stubborn crude oil deposits. Revenue derives from selling the gas and claiming a federal tax credit worth US$35 for each tonne of carbon put underground.

A member of a drilling crew prepares to place a collar around drill pipe on an oil rig in the Permian Basin near Wink, Texas.

 PHOTO BY NICK OXFORD/REUTERS FILES

But future growth hinges on far more widespread deployment. Pipes would funnel CO2 exhaust from emitters such as power plants, cement factories and oil and biofuel refineries to underground sites in some cases hundreds of miles away.

François Poirier, chief executive of pipeline company TC Energy, recently told analysts that a “fundamental aspect” of the CCS industry was “the ability to store and transport a molecule, which is, of course, our core business.” TC Energy is best known as developer of the now-cancelled Keystone XL crude oil pipeline, a target of environmentalists.

The business opportunity is potentially immense. A July report from the Biden administration’s Council on Environmental Quality said that a CCS industry large enough to help meet the country’s goal of “net zero” emissions by 2050 could require 68,000 miles of new CO2 pipelines at a cost of as much as US$230 billion. That is roughly comparable to U.S. liquid fuel pipeline mileage built since 2000, a boom time for the oil industry.

CO2 pipelines require thicker walls than typical oil and gas pipes to move condensed, liquefied gas under heavy pressure, limiting prospects for cheaply converting existing infrastructure.

“The capital is going to be large, and obviously existing infrastructure players like ourselves are going to be involved,” Al Monaco, chief executive of Enbridge, a Canadian pipeline company with extensive U.S. assets, told analysts last month.

The midstream sector is under intense pressure to show it can survive a transition to cleaner fuels. The Alerian MLP index, which tracks shares of pipeline partnerships, is down about 43 per cent over the past five years. The broader U.S. stock market has more than doubled in the same period.

Carbon capture has seen false dawns before, largely because new projects have failed to make money owing to high costs and the lack of financial incentives to capture it, such as a price on carbon.

The capital is going to be large, and obviously existing infrastructure players like ourselves are going to be involved

AL MONACO, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, ENBRIDGE

But many see the tide turning in Washington, where carbon capture is one of the rare items on President Joe Biden’s climate agenda to enjoy wide bipartisan support.

Last December’s omnibus spending bill will feed at least US$6 billion into the sector over the coming years, and the infrastructure package currently moving through Congress could provide government-backed low-interest loans for carbon capture infrastructure and speed up permitting for new projects

“The real cog in the wheel here today is economics,” Jesse Arenivas, the head of Kinder Morgan’s energy transition ventures business, told the Financial Times. “I think the policy support is coming.”

The fund manager BlackRock and U.S. oil refiner Valero are backing a company called Navigator CO2 Ventures, which has proposed a 1,200-mile pipeline system to collect gases from industrial plants such as ethanol refineries for shipment to a subterranean site in Illinois, sequestering up to 12 million tonnes a year.

Many environmentalists see CCS as a fossil-fuel industry boondoggle and distraction from expanding renewable power and other zero-carbon technologies. Doubts have been underscored by failures of high-profile projects such as Petra Nova, a CCS-fitted coal-fired power plant in Texas that shut down last year. The US$1-billion project had received a US$195-million grant from the U.S. government.

Kinder Morgan’s Arenivas also pointed to delays in permitting new storage reservoirs, which he said could take as long as five years for the Environmental Protection Agency to approve.

He added that the “anti-pipe movement” in the U.S., which has derailed a number of oil and gas projects, could pose similar threats to new, large-scale CO2 pipelines.

Still, while Arenivas sees his company building more oil and gas infrastructure in the future, he said it was “inevitable” that eventually it would be building more pipelines to carry CO2, as well as hydrogen, than fossil fuels. “I do believe it provides a huge growth story,” he added.

© 2021 The Financial Times Ltd

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