New Zealand must quickly come to grips with how agricultural-sourced methane and nitrous oxide are going to be managed within the ‘Zero Carbon Act’, more formally called the ‘Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019’. This Act brings both gases into the Emission trading Scheme (ETS) in 2025 unless an alternative charging system can be devised in the meantime.
Initially, the ETS charges will be only 5% of the full carbon charge at that time. However, the percentage will then increase at 1% of the full price each year. Initially, it will only be a few cents per kg milksolids, and a few cents per kg of sheep and beef carcass. But over time it will build up and become painful.
Given the media negativity to dairy, most people probably don’t realise that it will actually impact on sheep and beef profitability more than on dairy profitability.
In response to the situation set out in the Zero Carbon Act, a 13-sector pan-industry group called He Waka Eke Noa is beavering away, with Government encouragement, on alternatives to put back to Government. On 23 November, He Waka Eke Noa released a document setting out where their beavering has been heading.
The document is called a discussion paper. It is an interim document setting out their explorations to date. Constructive comments for improvement are welcome but they are not calling for formal submissions at this stage. The document could also be described as a testing of the waters, both with Government and the rural community.
New Zealand’s unique situation
The background is that New Zealand is in a unique situation among developed countries. New Zealand has high greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions because the export economy is underpinned by pastoral farming, with the food that is produced sold mainly to other countries. Although the food is consumed overseas, the emissions occur in New Zealand and hence it is New Zealand that gets debited with the emissions.
The emissions arise from the natural body-functions of ruminant animals. The important species in New Zealand are cattle, sheep, and to a lesser extent red deer.
Most of these ruminant animals are farmed on hill country that is unsuitable for cropping because of topography and climate. New Zealand has only small areas of flat land and much of this lacks the fertility and soil depth needed for continuous cropping. This reality is not well understood within the urban community.
Ruminant animals have a special advantage in digesting grass using specific stomach bacteria to extract the energy and make it available to the ruminant host. In the process, the bacteria produce methane which the ruminants then belch up. In contrast, if humans with different intestinal bacteria were to try a grass diet, then the humans would get a very sore stomach and quickly wither away from malnutrition.
Grass diets under New Zealand conditions tend to be high in protein and low in energy. Consequently, ruminants use most of the energy therein but excrete a considerable amounts of nitrogen. A small amount of this nitrogen then gets converted to nitrous oxide which is a particularly powerful greenhouse gas. On average, nitrous oxide lasts in the atmosphere for about 120 years. Hence even small amounts of nitrous oxide are a problem.
Both the international system and the NZ emission trading system convert all emissions to so-called ‘carbon dioxide equivalents’, with the accepted metric relating to warming potential over a 100-year period, labelled as GWP100.
The validity of this metric depends on an unstated assumption that global society has concerns as to what happens to the planet over the next 100 years, with each year of equal importance, but doesn’t care a brass razoo as to what happens thereafter.
This assumption would not matter much if all of the greenhouse gases had similar lifetimes in the atmosphere. But that is not the way that nature works. Much of the carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide will still be warming the atmosphere well beyond 100 years, whereas the short-lived methane will have long since gone.
This anomaly does not matter much for most countries, where methane is much less important than carbon dioxide as the major greenhouse gas, and where the anomaly does not have much effect on inter-country comparisons of total emissions. But it sure does matter in New Zealand.
I first wrote about this way back in 2006, with that article published in what was then called ‘Primary Industry Management’. At the time I was the only person talking about it. I took some media flak from those who were already locked into hostility towards pastoral agriculture, but in relation to industry thinking, the article was ahead of its time.
I had many other topics to work on and so it was not until 2018 that I started writing again about the importance of separating out short-lived from long-lived gases. The rural industry now increasingly understands the importance of this separation and many people are writing about it, but the urban community has yet to come on board with basic understanding.
New Zealand’s methane cloud has stabilised
The key issue with atmospheric warming from New Zealand’s methane emissions is that those emissions have been essentially static for around 20 years. Hence, with an approximate 12-year average residence time in the atmosphere, the amount of methane entering the atmosphere and the amount of methane that is leaving are approximately in balance. This means that if New Zealand continues to emit methane at the same levels, then the ‘atmospheric cloud’ of methane from New Zealand’s agricultural emissions will not increase.
This is in great contrast to the emissions from carbon dioxide where each year’s emissions pile up on top of the existing ‘atmospheric cloud’, leading to greater warming.
Whereas the GWP100 metric gives a flawed message in relation to agricultural-sourced methane, that is not the case with nitrous oxide which has a long life. Just like carbon dioxide, the ‘invisible cloud’ of nitrous oxide is building up. So, if climate change is perceived to be a problem, then nitrous oxide is also a problem.
Coming back to methane for a moment, other non-pastoral sources have been increasing around the world. A lot of those emissions come from the natural-gas industry. Some come from thawing of northern-hemisphere permafrost. But the increase is not coming from New Zealand.
Split-gas charging alternatives
At this point I return to the He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) document setting out two alternative charging scenarios that would lie outside the ETS. Both of the HWEN proposals would have a split-gas approach appropriate for the specifics of the New Zealand situation.
The first option is a farm-based levy where each farm would need individual monitoring and auditing and be charged accordingly. This would involve lots of monitoring, plus everything associated with monitoring that farmers hate. Big farmers might be able to tolerate the amount of work but for small farmers it would be a real big burden.
The second option is that levies would be collected from processors per unit of processed product, based on average farm emissions across the industry, and then inevitably passed back to farmers via product prices. So, farmers would still end up paying for it but without the direct monitoring and auditing.
With this second option, farmers who considered their situation to be typical would have no further paperwork to do relating to methane and nitrous oxide. However, farmers who considered they were doing something specific to reduce their emissions could put in a claim together with the evidence as to what they were doing. They would then get a rebate on their product-levy payments.
A lot more work is required yet as to the specific items that would lead to farmers receiving payments for their GHG reductions. The remainder of the levy payments would then be used to fund a lot more research into GHG reduction strategies for pastoral farms. An important feature is that none of the levies would leave the agricultural sector.
Some farmers are going to say that they don’t agree with either system. Those farmers might need to reflect on the political reality that the alternative is for agricultural greenhouse gases to be included in the ETS. That is likely to be much more of a straitjacket, and the levies won’t come back to the industry. Once in the ETS, farmers will have lost control of their destiny.
Following further refinement, HWEN will be taking the proposals out to farmers in the new year before putting a formal proposal to Government. My advice to farmers would be that, if at all possible, agricultural methane and nitrous oxide issues should be kept outside of the ETS. In my opinion, the second of the two non-ETS options requires fewer dead rats to be swallowed. But my guess is that there will be plenty of venting at the farmer meetings.
*Keith Woodford was Professor of Farm Management and Agribusiness at Lincoln University for 15 years through to 2015. He is now Principal Consultant at AgriFood Systems Ltd. You can contact him directly here.
89 Comments
So on one hand the farmers that are diligent reducing N2O and CH4 are rewarded, while small farmers and the devil-may-care producers are penalised either with higher charges or more paperwork. On the other, the costs are socialised, reducing (but not removing) the incentives for the diligent to reduce emissions while for the others it is a cost of production.
That's a nasty choice, but provided methane is not overemphasised, I'd go with the second, as it could provide increase incentives for the diligent with the drawback that it reduces the overall effectiveness of the scheme (incentives to reduce, but no real disincentives to increase)
This is getting so complicated you know its never going to fly. It was hard enough to get farmers to fence off the waterways, they are never going to go for unseen expenses with no returns. If we want to bring this country to its knees, just keep on perusing the zero carbon agenda. NZ should immediately bail out of this rubbish, its really pissing me off and I'm not even a farmer.
That's not the reality, dairy products are a global commodity and the price is set in international markets. Price moves on supply and demand, if the costs go up, farmers go out of business and then supply is constrained which will put the price up, alas too late for those who have already gone out of business.
We know temperatures are rising, methane from agriculture wouldn’t matter if we weren’t already in trouble. Our generation will muddle through the next 20 years it’s our children and their children that our going to suffer.
This generation will be the first to disadvantage its children for the sake of financial gain. Our grandparents fought 2 world wars for our safety we can't reduce pollution?
There are some similarities with Ireland but also major differences.
Their emissions from ruminants have been increasing over the last ten years owing to the expansion of ruminant agriculture - both dairy and beef - whereas NZ's emissions of methane have not been increasing.
Although ruminant agriculture is important to Ireland's economy, it does not underpin the economy to the extent in NZ. Also, things work somewhat differently over there because of the impact of the Common Market and the euro.
But I agree that Ireland is a country for which the CO2e approach based on GWP100 leads to the same sort of anomalies as in NZ. A split-gas approach for short-lived and long-lived gas emissions would allow a scientifically valid pathway where the effects of short-lived and long-lived gases on global warming are each considered on their scientific merits.
KeithW
If they are increasing methane emissions they may not be keen on using GWP* instead of GWP.
- The [IPPC] report also clearly states that the current accounting method, known as GWP100 (which compares the global warming potential of emissions over a 100-year period) overstates the effect of constant methane emissions on global surface temperature by a factor of 3-4 over a 20-year horizon, while understating the effect of new (or increasing) methane emissions by a factor of 4-5 over a 20-year horizon.
They might water it down , but there is no do nothing option. Groundswell appear to think there is , and Act are happy to let them think so . Some credit to National for not doing the same , though they haven't said what they will do . to be fair , one wouldn't expect them to until a election campaign .
Most of the pre-1990 forests are not on sheep and beef farms. Most are multi-rotation singe-purpose forests owned by big forestry companies.
The companies do not earn carbon credits for these pre-1990 forests.
Owners of post1989 forests can ern credits via the ETS but many of these owners have not done so for complex reasons.
KeithW
I'm mainly referring to the 1.3 million hectares of native forest that is on NZ sheep and beef farms, which you will be aware of but many people are not.
https://beeflambnz.com/sites/default/files/Norton_report_shortform.pdf
Much of it is in environmental covenants of one sort or another so that is taken care of, but certainly policy settings would encourage farmers to winter big mobs of heavy cattle in their native fragments. The sooner they're gone, the sooner they can be replaced by money-making pines.
If I understand this correctly you are saying that agriculture emissions are stable and have been for approximately 20 years therefore this should be allowed to continue, with no reductions required based on a history of 20 years . I believe many countries could make a similar argument based on the last 20 years or more Brazil's clearing, Australian coal and natural gas production etc. The level of penalty in the ETS is so small as to become a levy on BAU anyhow .
No that's not what he's saying, to be blunt you're not understanding correctly. If biogenic methane was created directly from fossil fuels and had the same timespan as CO2 then fair enough. It's not and it doesn't.
We are continually reminded to believe and follow the science. Well GPW100 is NOT science. It's convenient politics.
You are correct that CO2e using GWP100 has nothing to do with science. It is a political construct. If we were using a scientifically grounded approach we would undoubtedly use a split-gas approach for short-lived and long-lived gases. Both categories are relevant to global warming but there is nothing scientific in aggregating them within a GWP100 framework. Dong so has greatly muddied the waters.
KeithW
Levies: "and then inevitably passed back to farmers via product price"
This is Trump-think policy and totally flawed.
Just as the Chinese were never paying the USA import levies, the US population were, any costs added to production will be passed to the consumer.
The producer is not going to sit back and take a cut to his bottom line, he will increase his farmgate price to cover it.
That is fine as long as everyone understands that it is just another consumer tax, albeit since it affects export prices as well at least it will collect some tax from overseas consumers.
The other part, of the producer showing input to reduction of GHG and claiming some benefit from that, all good stuff and long may it continue.
The thinking embodied in the plan is that the producer has bottomless pockets and endless resources to keep paying for this nonsense, but like any other business if a new cost is added to production then the price must go up eventually so that the producer stays in business and he can only do that by selling a product for more than it cost to produce including a margin for his own personal survival.
Selling at a loss as costs rise will only result in bankruptcy, so the cost rise is inevitable with the only alternative being that we just close all agricultural production and walk away.
Even in return-controlled environments like Fonterra the shareholders (producers) will demand higher returns to cover any new levies, or they will sell out if a buyer prepared to take the loss comes along, or they will walk away, or they will sell all the livestock and plant trees. the end result is the same, no more production unless the price rises to cover the costs.
Always look forward to your articles Keith.
My view (as you can probably predict) is that the steady state methane argument is going to get the sector into trouble. The public won't buy it and the scientists certainly will not. The sector is basically saying:
- we have around 360 megatonnes of NZ methane in the atmosphere (12 years x about 30 megatonnes per annum CO2e)
- our emissions are sat there like a nice blanket warming the earth
- BUT, good news! The blanket isn't getting any thicker because methane only lasts 12 years and it is disappearing as quickly as we are adding to it
- So, we can just carry on doing what we are doing - all good?
The answer is obviously not. If we reduce methane emissions the blanket gets thinner and the earth warms less. Also, with methane being a short-lived gas, it will increasingly be a target for international action because rapid reductions in methane emissions will have an almost immediate impact on warming, meaning the world might have a little bit longer to reduce carbon emissions.
Great, so lets close all the coal mines in Australia for a double whammy effect, no more methane released and less coal available for anyone to burn.
that single initiative will cover off all of NZ Methane production as well
But you know people, within a year there will be more and bigger coal mines opened up elsewhere to cover the gap, losing Billions of dollars in revenue for Australia and making not one jot of difference to the problem, so on we go.....
That logic is a recipe for total planetary destruction. The answer to pretty much any question in the form 'Should we do A, B, or C to reduce the risk of catastrophic climate change?' is ALL OF THE ABOVE (and have you got any other ideas?) Countries that do not get with the programme will increasingly be frozen out of trade.
Jfoe
A considerable number of scientists do understand that short-lived and long-lived gases need to be considered separately on their own specific merits.
But some other people, claiming to be led by science, are just repeating misinformation.
There are a lot of lobbyists who 'know' the solution and organise 'so-called facts' accordingly to support that solution, and do not themselves understand that their solutions are based on on basic misunderstandings.
KeithW
Appreciate the response, Keith.
Yes, I am familiar with the science. My point is that the recognition of the difference between short-lived and long-lived GHGs brings more threat than opportunity for agriculture. Once you understand the science, and the global politics of climate change, methane becomes an obvious short-term target; something you cut hard to buy the time you need to de-carbonise (or plant enough trees to carpet an area the size of India and Brazil combined).
Jfoe,
I would be interested in your insights as to the physics of a tipping point, and also how methane could be central to that. The short atmospheric life, combined with huge ocean buffering of heat, suggests to me that any sudden tipping point is unlikely.
KeithW
Any of the destinations is not a good place. As Prof Frame said Methane has contributed to the warming and even if held is still warmed. He made the point we still need a 10% reduction from now and nitrous oxide to be gone(or offset). Below from NZAGRC - Methane maybe the least of our problems.
Although only a small component of the earth’s atmosphere, tonne-for-tonne and averaged over 100 years nitrous oxide is nearly 300 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide*. In addition, every emission of nitrous oxide stays in the atmosphere for over a century, making it a long-lived greenhouse gas.
Nitrous oxide accounts for around 12% of New Zealand’s total greenhouse gas emissions and 21% of our agricultural emissions in 2018.
New Zealand's nitrous oxide emissions have risen by about 50% since 1990, mostly as a result of the expansion of the dairy sector and an increase in the use of nitrogen-based fertilisers.
Certainly there are different tipping points for different species. our own Tuatara for e.g , the sex of the young is determined by the temp the egg average at a certain time , 1 degree is the difference between lots of males, or lots of females . (though I think the latest thinking on this is that different habitats will provide different temps , i.e a egg in a rock cave will be cooler than a rock in a "compost heap" , but what if all habitats are above the threshold?) A million years of natural climate change in a hundred years . Which specie won't be able to adapt ???
As they get on top of gases , i think there will be some move to price actual heat. For e.g a thermal solar panel gets no credit for taking heat out of the atmosphere , a coal power station does not get penalised for putting heat into the atmosphere. Just an extra layer on top of the carbon difference.
In my mind there are 2 types of carbon: above ground and below ground.
The above ground carbon goes round and round, sometimes within living things and sometimes within the atmosphere. Maybe it takes a hundred years or so to cycle around, which is a very short time period.
The below ground carbon, oil and coal etc, has been there millions of years until we dig it up and release it into the above ground cycle where it affects the climate.
To me it makes no sense dicking about making short term changes with the above ground cycle while we are still digging carbon out of the ground.
I think you will find fertiliser is a tiny portion of all the fossil fuels being burnt every year. Regardless it's a good plan, falling yields means less food, less food means less people, less people means less pollution. Problem solved. At least this way we can keep driving cars.
It seems that NZs problems with bovine gas emmissions must pale in comparison with those of the rest of the globe.
For instance Bolsonaro's right-wing Brazilian Government is allowing the clear felling of the Amazon rain forest at an ever-increasing rate to make way for cattle pasture.
I wonder how much our pastoral agriculture is contributing to global warming in comparison to other countries like Brazil? Especially if these other countries aren't really interested in tackling climate change because of political considerations.
The key sentence in KW's excellent article is " the urban community has yet to come on board with basic understanding."
This leads directly to the dilemma facing the rural community: as they are always outvoted politically, and as the prevailing narratives are set by politicians and special interest groups who overwhelmingly represent those urbanites, the choice is stark:
- Swallow hard, accept the narratives however dopey they are, and give wiggle room thereby.
- Try to oppose, modify or circumvent the narratives and risk top-down and generally one-size-fits-all restrictions imposed regardless.
Poster child: Three waters......
This leads directly to the dilemma facing the rural community: as they are always outvoted politically.
Well, whose fault is that. There was a time when farms were smaller and all voters had a relly involved with agriculure in some form or other, who could give the true picture.Now not so much.
Also if there was not such emphasis on grazing grass too early for peak protein and production, then the old tummy bugs would not cause so much farting and burping.
The start of application of serious amounts of urea to pasture would have been better left until cockies knew to leave the grass to grow a bit before grazing. As an ex tit swinger the smell of ammonia in the shed was often positively toxic.
We have resisted so far, though the numbers are so heavily skewed in pines favour it's really not economically viable to do otherwise (we may register Manuka)
I stand by my comment, the scheme should have incentivised the planting of natives over pine. Particularly given our size, everything we do is symbolic & it's a massive missed opportunity
You need 8 to 10x the area of native to match pine for carbon at 10 to 15x the cost. How many schools, hospitals etc should miss out to pay for this?
Even the CCC report areas requires large subsidies. Difficult choices for us all who want our lifestyles maintained.
You need 8 to 10x the area of native to match pine for carbon at 10 to 15x the cost. How many schools, hospitals etc should miss out to pay for this?
Even the CCC report areas requires large subsidies. Difficult choices for us all who want our lifestyles maintained.
Have you checked out Tanes Tree Trust , and Pure Advantage? they may have o some answers for you.
If its specifically pines your against , exotic hardwoods perform nearly as well from year 5.
As far as I can tell , you only need >50% pines , over 30% canopy cover for it to qualify for pine carbon credits. that leaves quite a bit of leeway to retain / plant natives , and still get an income.
TK - the sheer arrogance is common to all who arrived here, indeed almost anyone who arrived anywhere. They all brought their non-indigenous flora and fauna.
Pot, kettle.
The only difference between Maori and European environment trashing was energy-leverage. It is also why Europeans 'won'.
Farm level will cost more than the benefit. Who's going to do this work? I would avoid this like Covid.
Processor level better but still need to be wary on running costs with this.
Whatever the methane levels are something will have to happen. I feel the argument on how methane is measured is more of an international problem and our clout there is very low. Im agnostic but science should rule - listened to Prof David Frame last week and he seemed to say we still need to reduce methane by 10% plus nitrous oxide - he's pushing for these lower limits so on the farmers side.
If farmers moan about all this well its into the ETS. Think very carefully before you jump up and down etc etc.
NO NO NO is not an answer whether you like it or not.
If nz needs to spend what I believe will be substantial money in some offshore purchasing of carbon offsets then presumably the cost of this should be apportioned across industry by percentage of carbon/methane generated otherwise it could only be seen as a subsidy to industry eg agriculture that would attract tarrifs from importing countries under trading rules .
The offshore purchases relate primarily to carbon dioxide emissions, most of which are unrelated to agriculture, and for which we have made some big target reductions which we will have considerable difficulty in meeting.
None of countries that import our primary products currently have emission charges for their own agricultural methane and nitrous oxide emissions. So they would be on shaky ground trying to apply tariffs.
Of course that does raise interesting questions about our own policies.
KeithW
Thank you Keith. Always thoughtful.
To my mind it's a pity that the complexity of climate has been reduced to trace atmospheric gasses. 95% of the heat dynamics of the blue planet are controlled by water. Water vapour's absorptive spectrum overlays that of methane. Grasslands cannot exist without ruminants so now we believe that they cause anthropogenic global warming. Brilliant.
Clearly in 2021 we've found a way to monetise BS. That said, facts no longer matter. As livestock farmers we just have to accept another tax and like all taxes look for ways to avoid or evade.........better check which with my lawyer and/or accountant.
Self-justification. Thoughtful self-justification, but that's still what it is.
The bigger picture problem is the fossil carbon that was below ground during ALL human evolution (in other words, it wasn't part of our habitat).
We are digging it up, burning it for the energy (many calories of it, to one calorie of produced food - a warning for the future) and ADDING it to our habitat. And it's biting us on the bum, vested-interest avoidance aside. You can't sequester the below-ground carbon above-ground; not enough acreage. And the acreage demand is knocking food-production demands, which in turn are driven by a population in gross overshoot, courtesy of said fossil energy being applied to food-production. Add in that we've burned the best half of the fossil energy, and only have the worst half left, but it's exponential, so 2-3 decades at most; and if we burn it we fry to extinction.
So this can't be 'solved' by money transactions, and there isn't the lead-time to 'solve it' by planting. To save the habitat (keep it within a survivable envelope) we need to cold-turkey off fossil carbon. But that means condemning half the global population to starve/die, and many of us would have reduced ability to 'consume'. So we won't, until nature does it to us forcibly; which it will. Or we fight over 'what's left' of the planet (most importantly, the remaining fossil energy).
What to do in light of the above, is the bigger question. De-fossil-energising food production seems to me a bigger priority by some orders of magnitude. And it would have the bonus of doing more for emissions reduction as collateral. Focusing on the reduction, is the wrong way to look at it.
We and many other pastoral sheep and beef farmers solely rely on solar energy and photosynthesis. No fossil fuels required to produce food. The more vibrant our ecosystem processes the more resilient the system. Pastoral farming is the most benign food production system as it is a perennial system. The 10 calory in for 1 calory out pertains to intensive cropping. The high energy green revolution does not account for the majority of the world's food. 70% is produced by small scale subsistence farmers (women) on 30% of the world's farmable land area.
We do use fuel for transport and tasks such as hay making.
We also believe we are sequestering carbon in our soils and have commissioned independent analysis to verify. All the tree planting and reserved native recovery areas further employ carbon. The healthier the overall farm ecology the more carbon employed in the myriads of life cycles.
Great reply and all power to you.
How do you go re nutrient depletion? After all, you can't take off indefinitely - although I note a lot of old time farmers did; tussock burning was one extend-and-pretend ploy. What do you put back, and how? Personally, we face this with gardening; almost impossible to put enough in.....
Nutrient depletion has many facets, First off just about every element on the periodic table is necessary for life. Farming mainly applies nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Then comes calcium (lime), sulphur and least often, magnesium. So my point is that every farmer must be depleting every other mineral. Now when you look at soil, apart from air and water spaces, it is all mineral. If you mined it all you would have nothing left to stand on. Soil tests only show plant availability not the totals present. For a fertile soil we do have to squeeze in 5% living organisms. These organisms are the intermediatories between plants and mierals. Grasslands especially will exude 40-60% of their photosynthetically produced sugars, along with a baffling array of signalling molecules, to get the microbes to make the needed minerals available to them. Just as lichens break down rock, so do fungal bacterial symbionts in the soil. Mineralisation is continually happening, abeit slowly. This makes nutrient re-cycling essential to any kind of abundant life. Processes also micrbially governed. This all happens naturally providing we do not kill with biocides, do not supply luxurious quantities of nutrients and ensure that the plants are not too stressed, e.g. drought and overgrazing. Solar energy capture is dependent on healthy green leaves. Grass just grazed will recover itself before feeding soil. Which is why paying attention to grass recovery times is integral to developing a healthy biological system.
t
n
Organic and regenerative advocates would argue that both soil fertility and soil depth can be increased. I'm not sure they'd agree that NZ could not grow more crops , and grow them well. Livestock can definetly help , and the rotational mixed grazing / cropping model is ideal for places like the Canterbury Plains. Funnily enough that is what we learn't in Geography at school. Then along came the irrigators , and the only thing that could pay for them was dairy.
We are not alone, Australia could feed the world , if it used it Irrigation for grains , rather than cotton , which has no place in arid conditions. Unless there's cheap water.
"the rotational mixed grazing / cropping model is ideal for places like the Canterbury Plains"
Far too sweeping. The plains have a mosiac of soil types, and soil depths range from metres on the south banks of the two major rivers, to millimetres on the stony North banks. Guess where the cropping is concentrated....
And until those stony areas like Te Pirita got irrigation and cows, they grew little but straggly sheep, gorse and broom.
Keith's oft-made point applies: NZ has very limited croppable land compared to total area......
solardb,
Much of the limited Australian irrigation comes from flood flows in the Murray Darling system. One of the advantages of using this for cotton is that in a dry year when there are no flows in that system then the land lies fallow. One of the issues with grain production in Australia is that there is tremendous between-year variation, and this leads to a commodity-based industry. It works somewhat better for cotton than for grain.
KeithW
My knowledge of Australia was pretty much limited to this article , not sure if it covers the difference between flood years and drought years or not .
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2018/apr/05/murr…
My main takeaway is "we don't know how lucky we are, mate ".
Great article as always Keith.
Where do the large processors fit into this? The focus has all been on the farmers but presumably Fonterra etc still burn large amounts of coal for their boilers.
Any idea how much coal this is and what the indirect cost to farmers would be of either off-setting this (buying ets units) or converting to biomass would be?
The large processors ae already charged for their own emissions though the ETS. Fonterra is gradually changing all of its coal burners to other forms of energy. There are plans that biomass will be the major source of energy for their boilers.
It is not only the agrifood processors who are converting to biomass. For example, the big hospitals are heading that way.
I do not have the figures at hand, but the amount of biomass needed for industrial processing is potentially huge. It is the third use of forests sitting alongside timber utilisation and carbon. The cost of transporting the biomass to the boilers is considerable with the alternative being conversion to electricity closer to the source.
There is also some potential for use of other feedstocks such as species from the Miscanthus genus, with these belonging to the Poacae family. They grow to a bout 4 metres in height and can be harvested annually. This includes sterile varieties which removes the problem of them 'going wilding'.
KeithW
Around 4 million tonnes per year of biomass. It needs to be close to plants or else you use to much energy getting it there. Miscanthus an option but needs easily accessible ground to harvest. Biomass could be a big mover in some regions in next 10 years. Electricity reticulation is a big issue, cost and will limit its use. Frontera has made it very clear what route they are going down.
Seems it was actually E.globulus.
https://mro.massey.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10179/2424/01_front.pdf?seque…
Or conversion to electricity. But, Interesting sidebar, at 15Mw or so per conversion, it would not take long to chew through Tiwai's 500 odd Mw of load and that ignores the issues of transmission capacity, EV demand and so on. 10 such conversions would be 150Mw of load, so there's 1/3rd of Tiwai....
Trade-offs, trade-offs....
Most the electric conversions to date have been to electrode boilers . 1kw electricity =1 k.w of heat . Not that competitive unless your on foreign owned smelter rates.
What would be more efficient would be a hybrid biomass / heat pump system . The biomass is burnt to keep the cold side of the heat pump above freezing at least , ideally to the point of max efficiency or COP of the heat pump. The electricity contribution is varied depending on the spot price / overall plants demand , smoothing it out . Could be done for a gradual phase out of coal for that matter.
NZ reached peak livestock during the period 1980 to 1984, where all stock standardised to stock units totaled about 126.5m. By 2015 this total had declined to 104.8m. , or a decline of about 17%. When corrected for the change in balance between species the decline in total emissions has been about 13% over the same time. Why NZ did not press its case for recognition of this at the Paris conference is beyond my understanding.
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