Gas Powered Vegetables
The implications of New Zealand's domestic gas shortage are coming to a supermarket near you.
This week Vegetables New Zealand’s energy spokesperson Ellery Peters voiced concerns about the inability of NZ growers to secure gas supply contracts.
Now, understandably some of you may wonder why vegetable growers would need industrial gas supply contracts?
The reality is that in this modern society, where we demand all varieties of produce all year round, that growing vegetables is an energy intensive business.
Greenhouses need to be heated and surprise surprise plants love CO2.
Vegetable growers need cheaper energy solutions or face exiting the business as energy costs rise and gas supplies tighten.
Vegetables New Zealand energy engineer Ellery Peters says natural gas makes up a large proportion of the sector’s emissions and growers are now dealing with fluctuating prices and availability.
Supply contracts are getting smaller, and, in some cases, growers are being told they must “shut off their supply now”, Peters says.
“We are trying to support their transition from that, if they are forced to.”
He says growers have also been responding to rising carbon prices.
In 2019 about 50 per cent of the industry’s emissions profile was from coal, followed by natural gas and then other hydrocarbons such as diesel and waste oil.
“What we have seen from the new data we have collected in 2024 is that portion of coal has reduced substantially, and it is actually dominated by natural gas.”
Some larger growers are switching to biomass, Peters says.
“But many of the small-to-medium players are moving to waste oil from coal because they find that it's a very easy switch and it's the cheapest fuel source that they can find for themselves.”
Gas is now the sector’s largest source of fuel. It is “difficult to move away from natural gas for a lot of the very, very large growers because they actually collect the CO2 that comes off the flue gas and put it back into their greenhouses.”
That CO2 adds an extra 25 per cent to crop productivity, and Peters notes that even producers using renewable energy often run generators for the CO2 alone.
"Finding a solution to that is very challenging.
The full article can be found here Gas shortage heightens growers' transition challenge
This is just one of the emerging realities that New Zealand’s dwindling gas supplies present.
How this will play out for us as consumers is in the form of increased costs for non-seasonal vegetables as growers move to more expensive heating options. In the worst-case scenario some growers will shut up shop and we will see scarcity pricing when the out of season vegetable supply can’t meet demand.
The other option is to learn from our grandparents how to eat only seasonal vegetables and make preserves.
This is just one of the realities of intentionally or unintentionally moving away from oil, gas and coal. These hydrocarbon resources have made food systems so productive, so cheap, international and largely immune to season variation.
P.S. For all of you out there promoting veganism to save the world from climate change, you might want to thing again.
Have a great evening folks!
