They just can’t see the significance of this: “Carbon-capture-and-storage technology a joint venture of SunSelect Produce and Dutch energy company Procede”
A B.C. greenhouse grower and a Dutch energy company have developed a new carbon-capture-and-storage technology that relies on the natural need of plants for carbon dioxide to transform carbon contained in biomass into food.
SunSelect Produce Inc. and Procede BV say their carbon-capture-and-storage system is the first commercial operation of its kind in the world to convert the carbon in biomass into fertilizer for food.
The technology is designed to heat greenhouse operations with low-cost biomass, filter emissions, capture the carbon dioxide and feed it to the growing plants as a natural air-borne fertilize, said Victor Krahn, chief executive officer of the joint-venture company, ProSelect Gas Treating. SunSelect Produce unveiled the technology Friday at its 17-hectare Delta greenhouse complex.
“We are taking the carbon and instead of letting it go into the atmosphere, we are converting it to food and eating it,” Krahn said.
“We are eating our way to a carbon-negative future.”
Plants need carbon dioxide, light and heat to grow and the more CO2 they can absorb, the more productive they are, Krahn said.
The technology uses a patented organic liquid to remove the C02 from the exhaust gas stream of the greenhouse biomass burner.
The liquid is then heated, releasing the pure CO2 into the greenhouse for the plants to use.
Krahn said SunSelect’s Delta greenhouse is the first one in the world to have an operating carbon-capture-and-storage system. It removes five tonnes of carbon an hour from the facility’s biomass burner and recycles it for the carbon-hungry peppers SunSelect grows.
“The system is viable. We feel fantastic about it,” Krahn said.
The innovative carbon-capture-and-storage system cost $5 million to develop. The joint venture partners received $2.24 million from the British Columbia Innovative Clean Energy Fund and $1.72 million from Sustainable Development Technology Canada.
Krahn said SunSelect switched from natural gas to biomass as a source of heat for its greenhouse several years ago when natural gas prices spiked.
A critical element in the success of the program is that by using biomass, which is considered a renewable energy source, to replace natural gas, a fossil fuel, SunSelect is able to sell its carbon credits through Offsetters, a B.C. organization that certifies greenhouse gas emission reductions by businesses, and buys and sells the resulting credits on B.C.’s carbon market.
I’m totally not getting this. They’re using a biomass burner to heat the greenhouse, rather than using natural gas. But rather than just venting the CO2 to the atmosphere, which would also be “carbon neutral” since biomass is derived from atmospheric CO2, they’re using a closed loop involving heating and cooling of an organic fluid to capture the CO2? That can’t possibly be more efficient than just venting to the atmosphere! And how are carbon credits involved???
It’s like a big Rube Goldberg machine!!!
I don’t get it. CO2 from ‘dirty fossil fuels’ is said to be ‘pollution’, so the greenies should protest the result as ‘food grown in pollution’ or ‘polluted food’. The other option is to harvest ‘natural carbon’ from Earth’s atmosphere, but that’s also ‘polluted’ with CO2, so the alternative is to refuse eating vegetables, much to the chagrin of vegetarians and obesity alarmists, who will protest… And so on. Starvation is the only viable [sic] response to these problems.
All CO2 used in greenhouses is “captured”.
Are the greens really that stupid, or just self delusional. Here we have “carbon hungry peppers” that grow better when the CO2 is increased, but putting CO2 in the atmosphere is bad because, I guess, other plants wouldn’t use it as fertilizer. CO2 adsorption by a “patented organic” chemical seems like a diversion. Are they trying to suggest that these organic peppers are made from organic CO2 (biomass) captured by some secret “organic” liquid, so it all really green and organic? I’d bet they are using the standard CO2 adsorption by amines that has been around for decades. These are organic in that these magic chemicals are made of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen.
Where are we going to get enough biomass to burn to make this more than a “See how green I am” advertisement, probably at taxpayer expense?