 Kia ora kato, nā mai hāri mai. Welcome back to everyone. Welcome to this EHF live session. We've still got a few people rolling in, but I will just admit them all in as we're going along. So, Edmond and Hilary Fellowship, for those of you that are new to this session, is a collective of entrepreneurs, scientists, storytellers, we've got creatives, investors, change makers who are all part of the fellowship and wanting to make the world a better place. And today's session is going to be run by Matthew Jackson and he has got with him, Paul Bennett and Harman Middon, who's actually in there as we're saying before, at four o'clock in the morning. So Matthew's going to run today's session and any questions, you can either put them in the chat or you can put your hands up and ask those questions. It has been recorded, but note your face won't show up unless you're actually speaking. OK, over to you, Matthew. Oh, and this session is finishing at quarter past the hour. So if you do have to leave on there, just gently say so in the chat, but then you can watch the rest of the session afterwards. Thank you, Matthew. Kia ora Michelle and welcome everybody. Look, first of all, I thank you for taking the time to join in. And as tradition in New Zealand and I think as we celebrate Māori language, we're actually going to start with an open karakia. For those of you that are new to the fellowship, the Treaty of Waitangi is a very inherent part of the practice of Taikiangi where we actually use te reo and weave it into the fabric of our day. And so I just wanted to open the session today with a karakia. So kia hōra te Mārinia, kia whakapapa o namu te Māwana, he hara dati mai te tau e te ranginae aroha mai te tau ia te tau kaitoa hui e taiki e. So what that basically means is may peace be widespread. And the reason I chose it is it talked about the sea being the greenstone and a pathway for us all this day. And I start my day every day with a walk along the water and why I decided to join Himana and his venture is that we are really focused on really water security in New Zealand. And so the end of the karakia was just saying, look, let us show respect for each other and for one another, bind us together. And I think that's really important because really what we're here to discuss today is that we need to start to democratise climate action and have everybody contributing. We don't need to have sustainability or climate in our job title in order to take action to prevent climate change. And really the circular economy is kind of a place where every job has climate as a part of action within it. So in particular, we're here today because we want to discuss the industrial side of that. Biogas can really actually displace fossil fuels, heating, electricity, generation. And in addition, when it's cleaned of contaminants, it can be used for fuel for vehicles and otherwise replace natural gas. And digestates can replace fossil-based fertilisers. So I think we're also going to have a challenging conversation today. And the reason for that is methane actually, as a warming effect, is often 30 to 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide over 100 years, but New Zealand is actually excluded biogenic methane from its emissions targets. And at the same time, but there is a significant opportunity because biogenic digest is a really forecast to increase in significant size. But that's enough for me today. I am so privileged and I'm actually getting a few chills just talking about it because we have here Dr Paul Bennett with us. And this is a quite a unique opportunity for us. I think Paul is the chair of the industrial, sorry, the International Energy for Bioenergy, sorry, the chair of the International Energy Agency Bioenergy Group. It's a bit of a mouthful, but basically the IEA is really committed to shaping the future and sustainable energy future. And they do that by tackling clean energy projects, collecting data and providing training around the world. Now this means fundamentally that Dr Paul is at the heart of global energy dialogue of bioenergy. So it's a very unique opportunity we have to speak with him today, which is why what we've done is tried to put as much time into Q&A. And the back half of this talk today is really designed to have an interactive approach for us to be able to draw from his knowledge and experience over the last few years. Now for his day job, Dr Paul is actually the portfolio leader of Integrated Bioenergy at Scion Research Group. That's a Crown Research Agency that specialises in research and science and technology development in forestry wood products and wood-derived materials. So just really, really pleased that Paul has decided to give us his time today to spend time with the fellowship and we'll make sure that it's really easy for anybody in the fellowship to be able to connect with him after the call. And I'd also have the pleasure of introducing my co-founder in alimentary systems, Haman Madan. You know, I guess this is the time where I say thank you to, I guess, the fellowship itself. You know, even Teatira, I think, has played a big role in providing a landing space for the fellowship. It's where we get the values from for the fellowship and the thanks to Michelle and everybody that's involved in setting these calls up because if without that, I wouldn't have had the pleasure to meet Haman. And I appreciate him dialing, you know, that God awfully are in India. And too, do please give us a little bit of leeway if the audio cuts out. We know that the internet is constrained during the global pandemic. So let's remember that we still need patients who have been in non-lending environments. Now, a little bit about Haman. He has locked out of New Zealand because of MIQ at the moment. But his background is being involved in things like the development of the galvanising bioenergy resource policy, which eventually turned into the sustainable alternatives for fuel for alternative transportation in India. He's worked with large organisations like Violia on Smart Cities initiatives supported by Japanese Investment Cooperative Agencies and been an advisor to the Ministry of Drinking, Water and Sanitation at India. So, we have a breadth of knowledge and resource from these two speakers today, so I'm really excited and I would like to hand over to Paul now to take us off and I will start to share my screen. OK, thank you very much, Matthew, for your kind words and introduction. Just whilst Matthew is doing that, just an extra bit of context about myself. I have been at Scion for seven years now. As Matthew said, it's a science organisation. Science with an element around trying to achieve some impact and impact for the good of New Zealand. So, not out and out fundamental science, but certainly a bit more applied. But prior to that role, I had a range of different roles in industry and in a range of start-ups. So, I had 22 years at BP working on the last eight years around liquid biofuels and then worked as a consultant in a range of different start-ups at different stages of their trajectory and in different areas of renewable energy. But today, really, we'll focus on what is bioenergy, what are the advantages of bioenergy. Look at New Zealand in particular and look at New Zealand's emission profile and where we need to target emission reduction opportunities. Start talking about what the potential is for bioenergy for New Zealand, where I think the focus areas are and then I'll hand over to Amanda to start looking at some specific other opportunities. Next slide please, Matthew. So, what is bioenergy? Bioenergy is any sort of energy carrier that is derived from biomass. And so, it can be a gaseous biofuel, it can be a liquid biofuel or it can be a solid biofuel. And all these are in use around the world at the moment. Gas and solid in particular used for process heat. So, generation of high temperatures for process heat in New Zealand were starting to use solid biomass in dairy factories. In other parts of the world, we're using biogas in process heat or in combined heat and power applications. So, you're particularly big around power production for biogas. And then liquid biofuels. Well, there's a lot of biofuels in use around the world. Some people using ethanol and oil and fat derived biodiesels, but now we're starting to think of more advanced liquids, which are chemically and physically identical to the petrol diesel aviation fuels that we produce from fossil fuels. So, what are the feedstocks for gaseous biofuels? We're really particularly talking about wet wastes. So, wastewater is quite common feedstock for biogas production, animal slurries, food wastes, fruit pulps and in some parts of the world, purpose grown crops. But for liquid biofuels, again traditionally for ethanol, which I'm sure most of you have heard is a blending component with petrol, sugar and starch crops are the dominant feedstocks. We've also got oils and fats producing biodiesels, but both biodiesels and bioethanol have blend limits. So, you can only get a certain proportion into the finished product without affecting the overall performance of the fuel and without affecting vehicle warranties, for instance. But now we're starting to talk about more advanced biofuels and that opens up a whole range of different feedstocks such as wood and straws to produce those biofuels that are chemically and physically identical to what we're currently using. And for solid biofuels, we're clearly, you know, used as wood chip or converted into wood pellets or straw and straw pellets, all of which can be used just to burn to raise heat. We've been doing it for millions of years as humans. That's not rocket science. Next slide. So, in terms of New Zealand and the energy markets in New Zealand, there is a bit of a misconception. A lot of people talk about New Zealand's energy being really sustainable and 80% of our energy coming from sustainable or renewable sources. Well, that's wrong. It is power. 82% of our power comes from renewable sources. But if you look at the pie chart on the left, our total primary energy was 60% of the energy used in New Zealand still coming from fossil fuels. So, we have to get that right. And the power proportion, I know these aren't direct comparisons from total primary energy to electricity consumed, but the electricity consumed is only a small portion of the energy used. So, 16% are shown in this slide. Next one, please, Matthew. So, in terms of our greenhouse gas emissions, and Matthew sort of touched on this earlier, if you look at the emissions in terms of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, you see that 44% is carbon dioxide and 43% is from methane. Big contribution from agriculture to our overall emissions, but methane is treated differently in the net zero carbon bill. And the net zero carbon only really refers to long-term emissions or those species that stay in the atmosphere for a long time. So, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. So, if you look at carbon dioxide only, you actually see 91% of New Zealand CO2 emissions are related to energy use, fossil fuel use. So, transport, heat and power. And so, if we're going to do anything about reducing our CO2 emissions, if we're going to do anything about progressing towards net zero, then we have to do something about the energy sector. Next slide. So, there are other strategic drivers for bioenergy as well in New Zealand and around the world. And you find that all these drivers have had significant influence on policy setting and implementation of biofuels in a whole range of countries. So, energy security and independence is a big issue. It's actually what started the drive around bioenergy in Brazil in the 70s. They had problems with crude oil delivery because of issues in the Middle East. And they started their sugar cane to ethanol programme then. So, energy security is a big issue. And I think personally it's a particular issue for New Zealand. We sit at the end of quite a long and complicated supply chain for crude oil and for crude oil products. And we're only a very small point at that. So, whatever we can do to improve our position around energy security and independence will be a good thing. And also, that area will be exacerbated, I believe, with the closure of Marston Point, which is scheduled for closure in June. So, that's New Zealand's only oil refinery. In terms of carbon footprint, well, we're starting to hear a lot of the markets around the world are becoming really much more cognisant about embedded carbon of products or carbon footprint. And New Zealand being an export-focused economy, this is a really important issue to us. And just to put that in perspective, the humble kiwi fruit, we export a lot of them across the world to Europe, particularly 60% of the embedded carbon of a kiwi fruit is associated with combustion of transportation fuels in getting that kiwi fruit from New Zealand to the end market. So, fairly significant. And then regional economic development is important. So, anything we can do to produce energy and provide a boost to the economy and jobs will be positive in the regions. So, with biofuels, we think the most likely place we're going to be growing some of the feedstocks will be places like Northland, East Cape, Central North Island, all regions that require some economic boost. And again, just to relate the energy security and economic development piece, New Zealand imports crude oil and crude oil products to the tune of $11 billion per annum. So, anything we can do to offset that has to be a good thing. Next slide, please, Matthew. So, New Zealand has started implementing legislation. We are behind the curve. I would say the uptake and thinking around climate change and bioenergy has only really started at the back end of last year. So, the Climate Change Commission started talking about really wanting to increase the amount of renewable energy, phasing out coal and natural gas and making out alternatives. And the alternatives being bioenergy, electrification and hydrogen. And I think going forward, they will all have a role to play. There will be no single silver bullet, but I think they will all be important. And the government on the back of that Climate Change Commission has started implementing legislation. It's investing $200 million to decarbonise government assets. So, schools, buildings, et cetera. So, $2 million going into that. There's another fund called the Giddy Fund aimed at decarbonising industry and that's $50 million. And then we're starting to see specific legislation coming in terms of phasing out fossil fuels in process heat, particularly targeting phasing out coal and then ultimately natural gas. So, New Zealand is using about 2 million tonnes of coal to raise heat in food processing plants and other plants and that's what's being phased out. As will, there will be no new coal boilers installed in New Zealand from next year. From a transportation perspective, there has also been a consultation document put out by the Ministry of Transport and MB looking at ways of increasing biofuels in transportation. The draft document is sort of saying that they want to see a 3.5% greenhouse gas emission reduction by 2025. That 3.5% greenhouse gas emission reduction translates to maybe 5% volumetric substitution of fossil-derived petrol diesel aviation fuel with biofuels. They have also started a feasibility study around sustainable aviation fuel. So, MB are supporting activity around that and trying to encourage the importation of technology to address sustainable aviation fuels. Next slide, please. So, in terms of process heat, this slide was taken from a presentation given recently by EECA, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Agency, part of the New Zealand Government, and they showed what they felt was going to be the transition roadmap as we move away from fossil fuel to alternatives over the next 15 years. So, if you just focus on the right-hand slide, this shows the amount of heat actually provided into the system and you can see on the left-hand side of that it's predominantly coal that is providing the heat. If we move across the right-hand side, you can see it's a mixture of electrification and biomass, mainly biomass. So, that's the trajectory the Government are looking for in terms of process heat. Next slide, please, Masih. And then, in terms of liquid biofuels, and Sion did a big piece of work with a range of stakeholders across New Zealand from a range of different sectors, so energy providers, energy users, forestry companies, Iwi, et cetera, and Government. And this was really targeted around what would a large-scale biofuels industry look like for New Zealand. What would be the key features of that? And I just listed some of the key conclusions here. One would be that we'd really focus only on specific vehicle types and therefore specific fuels. So, large focus around ships and planes and that's because those vehicles are very hard to decarbonise. Those are long-range applications, long distances between refuelling points and so actually liquid fuels are incredibly energy-dense in comparison with batteries or in comparison with hydrogen. If we're going to do biofuels, we focus on ships and planes. We also, if we're going to have a large-scale activity around biofuels, we do not displace arable food production. That land has to stay in food production and so the most likely feedstock would therefore be forestry feedstocks. And we know, Sion knows, there's a lot of feedstock available. We leave 6 million tonnes of the harvesting waste in the forest every year. Maybe 4 million tonnes of that is accessible. And as carbon prices start to head up, some of the low-grade exports come into play as well. So we export 7 million tonnes of low-grade logs to China and we export wood chips to China as well. All those could come into play into bioenergy. And then we need to start thinking about if that's not enough, then energy-dedicated short-rotation forests for bioenergy feedstocks. Next slide, please. So that was a quick run-through of where I think New Zealand is at in terms of bioenergy. It is embryonic, but it is starting to move and it is starting to move quite quickly. We believe the focus areas for New Zealand are around aviation, biofuels, marine biofuels, solid biofuels, biogases, and then the feedstocks associated with all of them. So with that, then I think I'll hand over to Harman to get a bit more specific around biogases. Thank you, Paul. That's a very useful overview, I think, for all of us here. I'll now look at what the energy potential really is from waste in New Zealand. Here we need to recognise that, given New Zealand's focus on the primary industry and the export of agricultural commodities, this is actually a significant opportunity. As Paul was talking about at the start, we have different types of biofuels depending on their phases of solids liquid or gases. Arguably, the potential to harness the energy in gaseous biofuels is significant if done the right way. It's also important to recognise here that this can go a long way towards decarbonising particularly process heat requirements or local energy requirements, as I'll speak about as we go through this presentation. Fundamentally, at this point in time, this is a very recent paper that shows that the energy potential could be anywhere between 15 to 20 litre joules. That's about a million giga joules. I don't want to get into too much detail here, but let's just say that harvesting and processing these waste would reduce approximately 5% of New Zealand's total energy requirement as it stands in 2021. Next slide please. We can also begin to recognise over here that we have an opportunity to manage biogenic emissions in a way that these can actually become an opportunity for New Zealand's primary industry and also towards decarbonising its overall systems and processes and also obviously reduce the dependence on imported fossil fuels. Why is this an opportunity? Simply put, there is a distinction between fossil carbon, that is the carbon that's produced from the combustion of fossil fuels and biogenic carbon, which is what we most commonly see from the production of methane and carbon dioxide by stock, for example. Biogenic carbon can be recycled indefinitely and therefore that's the argument that we could potentially begin to move towards net zero, which is the aspiration by 2050. This might also require a few changes to the way we farm in New Zealand. Arguably the move from having stock on the paddock towards having stock in feedlots or in stalls is one way to do that and obviously not just contain the methane emissions from the stock itself but also harvest and harness the energy potential in the dung and droppings as well. But of course we need to recognise that within the primary sector we need to follow the cascade of food, which is what you and I eat, feed, which is what we produce for stock. I've lost your audio. Can you have an energy source that can be recycled or a carbon that can be recycled? But you also have the ability to reduce your emissions and meet your energy security. Next slide please. But of course this doesn't come without its challenges as Paul touched upon this is still a new and emerging sector that is still a tremendous amount of work to be done. But we're seeing the policy environment move in the right direction. The emissions trading scheme has included both a default emissions factor and an energy allocation factor. So what does this really mean exactly? A default emissions factor tells us that any form of organic waste as it decomposes will have a degree of emissions associated with it. Now this is qualified in the COPs assessment report. It's a continuously evolving standard and that also gives us an indication of what the global warming potential of a given type of waste is. So this is beginning to be included in New Zealand's emissions trading scheme. There's also an energy allocation factor if you are to utilise the emissions from waste to produce say a biofuel which then substitutes a proportion of a fossil fuel that's used in a certain end application then there would be an energy allocation factor associated with that and therefore an equivalent offset available. Now this is important because this allows us to put a dollars and cents price to the emissions produced from waste and also for the energy substitution that's achieved by utilising this fuel in turn. This is a significant step because it begins to allow us to see what the financial models could begin to look like and how these would come into play in order to be able to make this a doable business or financially viable business. It will also be required to be done in a way that allows and this is where we're in uncharted territory from a policy perspective that allows a project for example to qualify for both a default emissions factor and an energy allocation factor. This has yet to be done and in fact that's... Haman, I've lost your audio again. If you can hear me, I don't believe we're getting audio through from you at the moment. Okay, sounds like you're coming back. Okay, let me take over for a second. Next slide please Matthew. Okay, so I've got your audio back again. Sorry Haman, I didn't hear anything from where you started to talk about the fact that no commercial operation has both factors engaged. So perhaps you can just repeat that in case we've missed that audio. Apologies for that. So as Matthew mentioned we do not yet have a commercial operation in New Zealand that is able to account for both a default emissions factor and an energy allocation factor which is needed in order to ensure the financial viability of a project. That's part of the endeavour of what we are trying to do as a startup in New Zealand. We recognise that this could still potentially take a while to come to fruition because as it stands emissions from biological sources are not counted within New Zealand's naturally determined contributions. Let's assess the example of what Paul was telling us in terms of the export of kiwi fruit for example. Unless we begin to realise that there are emissions associated from the primary sector that happen within New Zealand separate to the emissions associated through the transport and delivery of these products around the world. We have a threat to essentially trying to find a way of reducing the emissions footprint of New Zealand. But also as a lot of people do recognise is that in the global context the amount of emissions that New Zealand itself produces as a country is really, really small. However the opportunity stands as always like we discussed in so many other contexts in being able to demonstrate providing both the technological and the policy and the associated financial models which could then be utilised in determining the right kind of financial system moving towards the circular economy. Next slide please. How exactly do we think that this could perhaps work? As a start-up business what we do is we design, build and commission the greater waste treatment plans. This is a simple system that allows us to process organic waste and capture the methane produced and the biogas produced. There are a few process improvements that are aimed towards ensuring a more stable operation across the year because one of the operational challenges is in terms of having access to a continuous supply of feed stocks and so therefore there's the seasonal vulnerability associated with the production of biogas. So we try to solve for that technically. There are two use cases that are untouched upon here just to give you a sense of how this could potentially work. So our first use case is for a council. So we'd look to process biosolids that's essentially to end product from a wastewater treatment plant along with green waste. What this does is reduces the capital outlay for a council. Currently councils treat these as two separate waste streams and therefore they have different capital allocation budgets land allocation operational structures etc for this waste. So here by combining them into a single processing source you can reduce the amount of capital outlay required. Potentially reduce the emissions liability that's going to come into the picture now and potentially threaten the financials for the given council lead to an increase in rates for ratepayers. So by reducing the emissions liability here there's the argument that one might be able to keep rates stable for ratepayers. Further the energy recovered can then be utilised locally. This is an argument also from an energy efficiency perspective. There is a degree of loss that happens when you transmit energy or transport energy be it a solid fuel electricity, a liquid fuel etc for one point to another. So from an energy efficiency perspective the energy recovered from an integrated waste treatment plant could be used to offset the energy requirement of the wastewater treatment plant as we know are extremely energy hungry. The other example of a case study of what Matthew and I are working on in New Zealand is to install an integrated waste treatment plant for a meat packer. So meatworks are another very significant part of New Zealand's primary industry but they also have waste products that don't have market value. So most common amongst them is something which is known as staunch liquor. That's essentially the digested or partially digested food within the gut of the animals when it is slaughtered. You also have the animal skins which may or may not find a market and then you have face pieces which is essentially as the name indicates the face of the carcass. And these otherwise need to go to landfill. We're beginning to see that this is changing as well not willing to accept waste from meatworks or from slaughterhouse and so an alternative is required to be found and that's where an integrated waste treatment plant can have an application because not only can you process this waste in a more efficient manner but you can recover the energy and this energy can be used to substitute coal for the process heat requirements at a given meat factor. So this is another use case. So not only do you take care of whatever waste is available locally but you recover the gas and utilize that as an energy source within a contained system. So that's yet another example of energy efficiency and also of the circular economy. Next slide please. I think I'll hand over to Matthew now and thank you for listening to me. Over to you Matthew. Thanks Hamann. So I guess thank you very much Hamann and Paul for that incredible overview. We've actually covered quite a lot of what the bioenergy industry looks like and I'm going to open up the space soon for questions and because really I think this is the time now to start the learning elements and I would encourage everybody to put their hand up but you never know what question you're going to ask is actually in the mind of one another and I'll be honest I'm actually very new to the bioenergy space so I do encourage you to learn more but why I decided that I wanted to work with Hamann on this project was quite simply I saw that we needed to progress New Zealand to be thinking more about what does it look like to be a circular economy. You know I think personally I put a zero waste aim on my household around three years ago and I'm looking at what does it look like to offset myself as a carbon to be carbon neutral as an individual but we really in order to move to a circular economy need to start to think about more progressive business models which are inherently circular and the problem is that in any infrastructure decision that we're making most of the waste built in at the design phase whether it be for large scale infrastructure or product design for us to build a circular economy we actually have to start now however what I've found and not from just my project but actually others that I've seen doing this work fundamentally circular and economic models can outperform their existing linear counterparts because it's a change in mindset to see waste and byproducts as something that we have to deal with to something that we can utilise but in particular it shifts we need to shift away from really what I consider asset ownership and more into what I think is a stewardship model where we're sharing we're sharing knowledge we are sharing the way that we deal with systems and opening up our waste systems to get more transparency around them traditionally what I think we see in New Zealand what I call waste monopolies we have often tried to specialise in waste and we've been told to separate waste but I guess what Haman and I are looking to prove and validate is that actually combining waste sources allows for effective bio gas output and really making it the circular economy from a technology perspective we need to build a new marketplace on top of that so that as waste comes into a system a byproduct comes out that is then valued as a part of that system and taking a very holistic overview of all of the interactions of that system is where we need to be thinking about what we need to be thinking about from a design perspective with that I just want to thank everybody for sitting in on the call and open up the discussion for anybody to raise questions and ask questions I'm going to stop sharing the slide now and I will by all means feel free to just raise your hand and then we can call on people. Michelle if you could help me with that that would be really useful feel free to put your raise your hand with your reaction or just put your hand up on the screen or if you want to write your message in the chat window and then we'll field them from there also there was a lot of information to take on Hi I'm Brian Cox from the Bioenergy Association I'd like to congratulate you on this presentation today and I'm hoping that for a number of people here who are new to the topic that it starts the discussion for them it's really important that we start having this discussion because we're moving from a situation where the linear process is dominated and where we have had loss of opportunities most people have tended to think of waste as a cost rather than an opportunity and I think what this discussion starts moving to is that we are talking about opportunities for business for communities but also as a society in total I think the aspect that we have is that we've got some tools in this technology of anaerobic digestion which not only produces the biogas which can be used as a feedstock for a range of other products and energy is one of those but there's also a feedstock for making other types of bioplastics etc but the other aspect is that the digestate, the solids that are left in the process are very valuable fertiliser if the process has been done properly so what the bionegist association is working on at the moment is a strategy of having no digestate go to landfills by 2027 and we're working in the process of hopefully getting waste minimisation funding for developing a certification of the fertiliser but that will also cover all fertilisers so the material that's coming from a waste water treatment plant right through to the source segregated material which is of course the highest failure and we're proposing to do a number of tests with agriculture working through fertilisers communities and fertiliser businesses to have this so it's economically driven so the economics for this are very sound but there is issues like its capital cost etc that has to bring this about so we have to work on those but the avenue is focusing on the benefits and the products that we produce has got to go hand in hand so is that an investise that it's not just a cost but it's also producing revenue streams for them so I'd like to commend this discussion to further other discussions that people might like to have and certainly the work we're doing we're welcome anyone to talk with us about the opportunities or issues that they might be having so thank you Michelle I think we have a few comments and queries in the chat section that we should perhaps address Absolutely so did you want to read them out Micheal so we've got one there from Tori Sure so Tori has said what are the unintended consequences we should be concerned about for example what would a biofuel industry from forestry mean for sedimentation in our waterways and how does the collection from farms of waste work with regenerative farming so I think the first part of that I'll throw to Paul Yeah so you know I think we do leave a lot of waste in forest at the moment and we've all seen some of the problems around East Cape with rainstorm events washing some of the slash out of the forest and depositing it on farmland and on beaches and that's something that really should be avoided and so part of the way of avoiding it is to remove some of that material and so that's I think part of the answer to that and also if we head towards repurposing of some of those export logs and look at short rotation forestry that's not an issue for those particular applications Paul I just want to add to that through some of our research we found that the demand for replacing process heat and you know with the impending upgrade of coal for replacement of process heat we actually don't have enough forestry stock to not impact other industries is my understanding I would challenge that I'm very interested So a thing at the moment people are talking about phasing out up to 2 million tonnes of coal now some of that will go to bioenergy some of that will go to electrification but let's just assume all of it goes to bioenergy that would require 4 million tonnes of green wood and that's what we currently leaving in the forest at the moment as I said there are other things also available like those chip wood chips that are exported and the low grade logs that are exported we're exporting nearly 7 million tonnes of low grade logs to China and there are people now looking at those logs with a view to chipping them and burning them for energy purposes here in New Zealand so I think there is plenty of feedstock certainly to get going If I can add to that the myth of there's not enough biomass is only because of the way we've been thinking about the whole forestry land use is that there is no doubt that we can use biomass to meet all of the demands for each of the applications whether it's liquid biofuels or whether it's solid biofuels or processed or whether it's for making biobased products but we actually have to as a community see the opportunity and to recognise that the opportunity of growing trees is for virtually all of us now if we're in the city that's a bit hard to look out of my window at the moment I look over a dairy farm I can see where trees have been previously planted on slopes which are no longer planted on slopes the dairy cars on that farm don't like going on that slope it's unsafe for them to be on that slope is replanting back the trees that were there before having managed shelter belts a three row shelter belt that is able to be a crop as well as produce the product of shelter is where we need to be thinking so it's about changing our paradigm not just from a linear to a circular economy but into a total land use we have environmental management plans which are now being rolled out for farming really they are only a nitrogen plan they aren't an environmental plan we need to have them as a full environmental plan so is that they are managing the property to the back of the property and the steep slopes and the parts the six to nine percent of a farm which is not highly productively used can be used for growing biomass then there's the other country hill country areas where at the moment we are trying to still put stock on land which shouldn't have stock that is much better to grow trees some places we can have short rotation quiet trees in South Canterbury they are putting in grass I have miscanthus because the boomerigators are such that you can't have high trees under the boomerigators so rather than having nothing they are putting in miscanthus which is a short annual so that is a source of biomass which is able to be used we currently burn straw in Canterbury we should be using that as a fuel as is done in China most of the pallets in China come from straw not wood and so the avenue we have to do is we have to think of ourselves in a total circular economy which is looking at our land use and managing our land so that it's there for perpetuity and not as we do at the moment as we still tend to think short term so extension of the circular economy into all of ways and if we do that then there is no question there is plenty of biomass if we don't do any of those things then yes there will be shortage Aman did you have anything to add in relation to collection of waste from farms or the way that waste would work with regenerative farming I do so as it stands we recognise that there can be a utilisation of waste on a farm itself this actually is a benefit to the farmer to give you an example in the New Zealand context you have dairy cows that are assured onto a milking station typically twice a day there is a typical physiological reaction in the stock that they tend to produce waste while they are being milked and all of this collects in a pond in a settling pond is actually a great feedstock for biodigestion you can recover enough energy on an average stock holding for say 450 to 500 cows and produce significant amounts of biogas that biogas is usually enough to provide the milk chilling requirements for that given milk yield so the milk that comes out of the cow is 38°C and it will spoil at that temperature so it needs to be chilled before it is transported to processing centre now you can utilise the dung that is produced at the milking station attach a small biodigest and recover enough biogas to run a generator which could then chill that milk down to 5°C ahead of transport so that is how it would work in today's day and age at a very local small scale for a given farmer like we have already touched upon earlier is a very high value organic fertilizer which then could substitute a proportion of the synthetic nitrogenous fertilizer that a farmer is using on his paddock so there is actually an additional benefit now there has also been other comments around the ETS and the default emission factors and the energy allocation factors if the ETS in New Zealand evolves to a degree where it allows the farmer to clean those it is an added financial benefit that could point towards the commercial viability of putting a small scale biodigest on a stock farm and that is the direction we need to be moving in I think what is also important to note over here is that we are not going to solve for climate by thinking that we are going to come up with some big bombastic innovation that is not going to happen what is needed instead is multiple small scale solutions across farms across crop farms, stock farms etc that utilize whatever biomass is available locally because that then also minimizes the transport cost that is another factor that has been spoken about and we begin to see now that when we look at the entire life cycle cost if we are able to access more effectively, we find commercial viability to come through as well I want to just bring Benjamin into this query I appreciate your patience Ben, would you like to present a question to the floor? Thank you very much Thank you very much for all the fantastic information as well that everybody has provided there is a couple of points I just wanted to touch on first of all was on your point Matthew of that kind of whole circular economy and business models and trying to get companies to buy into those and it is also then looking at the scope three emissions that companies are doing and allowing that and getting them to provide a lot of the support right the way through their supply chain and it is quite evident within the dairy industry that that is possible because they have that direct link and then I also wanted just to touch on and it kind of links in I wanted to touch on Brian's point on the biogas has such a potential to be part of a wider fuel service for instance in the UK the government has just announced that biomethane from manure will actually be certified as a carbon negative fuel source and there is a company there called CNG fuels who are turning that biomethane into biodiesel and they are targeting that heavy transport industry which is massive emissions by trying to convert it into a carbon negative and I think by next year those companies that are with CNG fuels will be able to instantly say that they are carbon negative they are carbon neutral sorry so I think there just needs to be more work from the bigger industries and also government to try and encourage this fuel potential that's coming from the dairy farm and just the agricultural industry in general touching on Harman's point there that the biogas potential could chill the milk but it has so much more potential if it can be used further down that supply chain and a wider scope and I think it would be exciting to try and bring some of those technologies to New Zealand and try and encourage them here to not just make energy potential from biogas but also to be carbonised those heavy transport industries as well and then linking with this thing that we were touching on before it just really interesting to open this sorry I'd just like to be Paul the space to give us some insight into what he's seeing on a global scale I'm just conscious that we have limited time with him at the moment and really he's going to be aware of all the mechanisms that are potentially being used overseas that could be applied to New Zealand so Paul I'd just like to open up a space where you could potentially tell us what do you think it is that is missing from this environment where do you think the areas that you're most interested in from a sion perspective and then New Zealand as a whole I mean I guess as well where have we failed and potentially where do you what can we learn from that I'd just love to provide the space for you to give us some insight Yeah I think we're just playing catch up I think that's what I would say we are so far behind the curve here you look at some parts of Asia Americas they've been working with biofuels, bioenergy for a long time it's a and as I said in my presentation it's only really been the back end of last year where we've started to see a little bit more interest from the government in bioenergy and therefore and maybe catalyzed by some of the comments of the climate change commission but now we're starting to see legislation coming in place that is sort of driving us down these roads that we have an opportunity now to learn to learn what other countries what other jurisdictions have done well and what hasn't worked in those places what legislation has been implemented that really drives us and will accelerate us forward so that's what I would those are my main comments you know we can do a lot of this stuff personally I think New Zealand is an ideal place for bioenergy to really really take off we've got the land we've got available land we've got some of the feedstocks already we've got the climatic conditions to grow even more feedstocks and dedicated feedstocks whether it's for biogas applications or liquid biofuels applications we've got all that let's just get on with it let's get the legislation in place that encourages it and hopefully not take a step backwards when governments change which is what's happened here in the past I mean Paul one of the things I think about the sector economy is that it fundamentally it creates an economic advantage to these types of technologies now I'm wondering is it is the only reason that we're looking at bioenergy now in New Zealand because of the fact that we're getting pressure from the parents is bioenergy being driven by climate and so are we actually missing the opportunity of bioenergy in New Zealand I think I did try and emphasise climate is an important factor but there are other strategic drivers here as well around our image and the image of our export products the carbon embedded with them our vulnerability to the fossil fuel markets and our exposure to that so there's a lot of other factors that need to be taken into account and I think legislation I mean we shouldn't just rely on legislation but it is needed at this stage to catalyse what we're doing I think okay Hamana is there anything you want to add to that you know I know that you can bring the lens of doing a lot of work in India at some frustrations you've experienced in that market and what do you see is the thing that's really going to catalyse the New Zealand market if we want to see bioenergy here obviously it's the ETS that's going to be the most significant driver there will be a characteristic approach so the stick comes in from the default emission factors of waste and the carrot comes in in terms of the energy allocation factor so a combination of those two will definitely help there are obviously as Paul already spoken about the vulnerabilities associated with the transport into and out of New Zealand both of you know whatever New Zealand needs being an island nation emissions cost around that so alternatives will have to be found but the ETS is going to be the game changer already for New Zealand maybe if I can just add to that just to give a bit more context around that just looking at the carbon prices and what's been happening with carbon prices here in New Zealand last year carbon prices were anything from 20 to 35 $5 a ton they're currently sitting at $65 a ton the climate change commission are saying that we're going to need carbon prices of $140 by 2035 if we're going to be on a trajectory towards net carbon zero they're also talking about prices up to $250 a ton by 2050 and I also mentioned the sustainable biofuels mandate which is tied to carbon reductions and the penalties are tied to carbon reductions and basically if a fuel supplier doesn't meet its allocated target of biofuels then it will be finally equivalent of $350 a ton carbon total and that's what's on the table as we're seeing that I mean and is this simply an issue because that have been raised new new I was surprised to not see renewable hydrogen as one of the specific biofuils being targeted. Most of the facilities we have been asked to look at in New Zealand have been asked to make H2. Is that the one? I can address that from two perspectives. One, we are looking at hydrogen, we're looking at distributed hydrogen from low-grade wastes. That is something we're looking at. There's also potential of coupling hydrogen production with biomass with a technique called gasification where you produce hydrogen and CO2. If you can capture the CO2 at the same time as you're producing hydrogen and you can then lock the CO2 away somewhere like an exhausted natural gas well, then you've got what's called negative emissions. There's countries around the world looking at that. It's called bioenergy and carbon capture and storage or BEX. In terms of use of hydrogen in transportation applications, and I said we're really focusing around aviation and marine, those are two long-distance applications where we still think liquid biofuils are important. If you look at the number of vessels that were being built in 2019, 94% of them were still going to be fueled with liquid fuels. Those vessels are going to be on the seas for a long time to come. There's going to be a long demand for liquid fuels. Same goes with the aviation sector. Boeing and Airbus are talking about hydrogen or electric aircraft, but they're only going to have limited range. They're aspirations, and I use that word, again, aspirations are to have vehicles in place by 2035. We're still going to be using liquid aviation fuels for a long time to come. Even after 2025, we're still going to need liquid fuels for the long-haul flights. 80% of New Zealand's pre-COVID emissions came from long-haul flights, so we're still going to need liquid fuels. That's why we're focusing on biofuils in those sectors. Mike, do you have anything to add to that? Mike, are you still on the call? By Mike, you mean me? No, Mike Hart, I believe that question came from. Yes, thank you. I appreciate it. It's interesting that hydrogen has come up over and over again in most of the communities we're talking to in New Zealand as an interesting fuel source that folks are liking to pay attention to. On our online calculator, the number of requests we're getting from New Zealand as hydrogen as the end product from garbage is really rising. I don't know whether there's some incentive or something like that going on that's driving it, but it is coming up quite frequently. Certainly over the past three or four years, there's been a lot of interest from the government in supporting a range of different activities around hydrogen. But they are quite specific. I mean, there's some interest in coastal shipping. There's some interest in some of the heavy duty routes, and there are hydrogen refuelling stations being built at the moment for those key trunk routes in New Zealand. But it is still quite a small portion of the overall transportation duty. The concern that my two cents on this is the concern that I have around us looking at hydrogen is one, the technology definitely has promise, particularly as Paul said, if we can have carbon capture and storage associated with it. The factors that we talk about what we call a hydrogen rainbow of green hydrogen or blue hydrogen or brown hydrogen currently the maximum hydrogen production is from brown hydrogen, which is essentially fossil natural gas. And the other limiting factor with this is that the infrastructure required for hydrogen to utilize it as an alternative to fossil fuels as it stands today does not exist, which means we need to create all new infrastructure. Unlike existing infrastructure where our current biofuels can be a drop-in. Now Paul was talking about the biofuels mandated in New Zealand. Today, every single internal combustion engine that is produced, and especially because New Zealand imports most of its vehicles from Japan, you can blend biodiesel up to 5% with petrol diesel and there will be no discernible impact on its warranty because there will be no detrimental impact on its performance. You could blend up to 10% ethanol with petrol and again you would have no negative impacts on the engine. So, there is a direct substitution possible with biofuels. Similarly, biogas upgraded to bio methane is a drop in biofuel for much of the North Island's existing reticulated gas network, which doesn't exist for hydrogen, right? So, there is the risk of being led up the garden path in terms of investing in creating an all-new infrastructure for hydrogen. Plus, it is my belief that it's something of a red herring because once you're committed to having made that undertake and that expenditure, where are you going to find enough hydrogen to put it in that system? It's not going to come from green hydrogen, it will come from brown hydrogen. So, all we'll do is extend the runway because there will be a sort of a faith accompany associated with the production and use of hydrogen, which then will essentially be brown hydrogen. So, I think we need to be a little mindful of that. OK, look, I'm just conscious of time. Paul, is there anything else that you want to add before we close off? My intention is to do a closing karakia and then leave the zoom open for anybody else that wants to still continue this discussion, connect and share details. So, Paul, I'll hand it over to you. Sorry, just to break in. I won't be off to leave this room because I need it at 1.30. Got it. Thanks, Michelle. No, I'd just like to thank you all for the opportunity. Some very interesting questions. Hopefully, if you haven't got the answers or if after some reflection on what you've heard, you've got more questions, I'm more than happy to answer them. So, please share my details with all the attendees. Obviously, the slides, the attendees and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thanks, and do you have anything else you want to say in closing comments? Just a very big thank you to everyone who took the time to be here. I don't know how many had an opportunity to have their questions addressed, but as Paul said, we're happy to speak to people, one-on-one answer their queries over email. So, everyone who's joined us today, thank you for your time and please feel free to reach out. OK, well, with that, I just want to acknowledge EHF. Michelle, thank you very much for enabling this platform and I'm just really privileged to be able to be a part of this community. I will make all of the slides available. We'll make sure that everything that we've discussed actually has a link on our website, elementary.systems, and I believe Michelle will be making a video available on the EHF website as well, if you'd like to share that. I encourage you to follow our elementary on LinkedIn, connect with Paul on LinkedIn, connect with myself or Harman on LinkedIn, if you'd like to continue this discussion. And for those of you inside of the Eminere Fellowship Slack channel, we'll put contact information as well in the environmental stream. So, with that, I'll just do a closing kara kia, kia tau to rangamari e re, kia rangat i na iwi o te ao. Let your peace rain on all the people of the world. And I chose that simply because of the fact that I know that we're all dealing in an environment at the moment that's quite stressful with restrictions on travel, with lockdowns. So, I really hope that what you took from this call is actually quite a lot of passion in the community in New Zealand. Paul, I think actually we have more bioenergy resources in New Zealand than we're really aware of. And Brian, I want to acknowledge and thank you for your contribution as well as the others that are doing the call and contributed today. So, with that, I want to close the call off and wish everybody an enjoyable rest of the day. Thanks very much. Thank you, Matthew. Thank you. See you, team. See you next time. Ka kite.