CORONADO, Calif.--Reducing greenhouse gases isn't enough for EcoVerdance and Accelegrow Technologies; why not tackle world hunger, too?
This year's Future in Review conference has chosen to spotlight a company called EcoVerdance, which is using a product developed by Accelegrow to promote carbon trading by using the proceeds from selling carbon offsets to purchase a chemical called Accele-Gro-M that dramatically improves the yields of existing farms and makes it possible to grow plants in places previously thought impossible.
I have to admit, the first time Future in Review organizer Mark Anderson described the scheme, two things popped into my head: the fable of Jack and the Beanstalk and the episode of The Simpsons in which Homer covered a barren farm with nuclear waste to produce a tobacco/tomato hybrid plant. But Dennis Knight, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Accelegrow, says his company's product is legit.
Accele-Gro-M is an all-natural chemical fertilizer that consists of hormones, proteins, nitrogen, urea and two proprietary ingredients for which Accelegrow is seeking patents. It overrides a plant's natural response to a stressful environment, which is to shrivel up in order to protect itself. Instead, Accele-Gro-M encourages the plant to open up and accept moisture from whatever sources are available, such as dew. And despite the stressful situation, it somehow encourages the plant to keep growing, Knight said.
The company has been studying the use of the fertilizer in drought areas, and has seen yields grow from 40 bushels an acre to 180 bushels to 190 bushels per acre, Knight said. Only 8 ounces of the product are required per acre of farmland, and the cost to the farmer is around $8 to $11 per acre, depending on the crop and the area of the world in which it will be used.
But EcoVerdance thinks it can use the promise of Accel-Gro-M to encourage carbon trading. The idea is to sell carbon credits to companies looking to reduce their carbon output, either voluntarily or as part of government regulation. Then, EcoVerdance will use that money to purchase Accele-Gro-M and donate the fertilizer to farmers in developing countries.
This will have several effects, according to David Morris, director, chairman, and president of EcoVerdance: crop yields will be enhanced on the same plots of land, and previously unusable plots can generate food. Additionally, the more plants that grow, the more carbon dioxide that can be taken out of the atmosphere.
EcoVerdance is still working out the kinks, and further testing of the product is required, but that's the idea. Knight claims that Accele-Gro-M has no side effects, either in the food that people eat grown with the product, or in any run-off into the groundwater.
CORONADO, Calif.--Looming energy problems present noteworthy challenges for the world, but big thinkers in science, business, and technology know they have to compete with the status quo without a helping hand.
The Future in Review conference has always been about sketching a picture of the technology and business landscape five years into the future. But this year, attendees and presenters are focused on a more pressing issue: the need for alternative energy sources to replace fossil fuels sooner, rather than later.
Stephen Evans of the BBC, Elon Musk of SpaceX, and Lyndon Rive of SolarCity (left to right) discuss solar power.
(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET News.com)As such, the early talk at the Hotel Del Coronado is all about alternative energy, whether that's cellulosic biofuels, photovoltaic panels, and carbon-reduction strategies. Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures kicked off the conference Tuesday night with an after-dinner speech urging the technologists, venture capitalists, and entreprenuers in attendance to focus on greener technologies that make economic sense, rather than crowd-pleasers like hybrid cars or Sheryl Crow's toilet-paper reduction strategy.
Khosla is plunging his dollars into technologies like enhanced geothermal, cellulosic ethanol, and efforts to improve the efficiency of products we already use, like engines and light bulbs. The key investment decision, in his mind, is whether these alternative technologies can work at utility-grade levels.
"(Alternative fuels) have to compete with the cost of fossil fuels without subsidies," he said, and they also have to be scalable. Technologies like food-based ethanol, wind power, and regular geothermal aren't scalable to meet the needs of a huge energy provider like PG&E, but if we could perfect ways to create ethanol from non-food sources, effectively store the energy generated by wind power, or drill geothermal plants anywhere on the surface of the planet, that goal of scalability comes into sight.
The other goal is that alternative sources of energy have to be price-competitive with current sources of energy such as oil, coal, and natural gas. The public will embrace cleaner, sustainable energy sources as long as they don't have to pay for it, Khosla said.
Martin Tobias of Ignition Partners, Erik Blachford of TerraPass, and David Morris of EcoVerdance talk about carbon-trading systems.
(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET News.com)Khosla is betting on the future, but he thinks that significant changes could arrive in the energy market as soon as five years from now. Other presenters on Wednesday morning discussed their current businesses, such as Lyndon Rive of SolarCity and David Morris of EcoVerdance.
Rive has a thriving business installing solar panels on California homes but is working overtime to try to ramp up the supply of solar technologies to meet demand, which illustrates Khosla's scalability issue: prices are way, way too high.
Morris' company is working on carbon trading by allowing businesses to purchase credits for a chemical called Accele-Gro-M, which is then given away to farmers in developing economies. This "all-natural plant growth enhancer," according to EcoVerdence's site, is used to boost crops yields; 1 gallon can treat 12.5 acres, Morris said. The increased yields not only improve the food supply in those areas, the additional plants take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
Carbon-trading markets have a bad reputation because many people feel they don't work to actually offset carbon production and give carbon producers ways to feel better about their production without really solving the problem. Morris' co-panelist, Erik Blachford of TerraPass, agreed that carbon-trading markets aren't perfect, "but they work."
Morris agreed. "The most costly thing we can do is nothing," he said. The FIRe conference runs through Friday, and several more panels will discuss the energy opportunity from several different points of view.
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