Crypto News: Low carbon diet

This week our Green Daily newsletters feature winners of BloombergNEF's Pioneers awards. The coverage is leading up to two live events: BNEF's two-day summit on April 24 and 25, followed by our own Green Summit, which you can attend virtually or in person by registering here. Today's newsletter focuses on the startups building a net-zero food production system.

Food production has a massive impact on our world. One in four people worldwide work in farming, an activity that occupies half of all habitable land and, along with forestry and associated land uses, is responsible for 23% of planet-warming emissions.

Farming has also led to drastic biodiversity loss over the centuries, and modern use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and weed killers has poisoned soils, polluted freshwater and drained aquifers. Livestock alone account for nearly 15% of human-induced emissions, a reflection of our growing appetite for meat.

But while other sectors like transport and power can benefit from breakthroughs in renewable energy and battery technologies, the impact on agriculture emissions is limited. Reducing the climate footprint of the food industry requires a different approach, from developing more sustainable sources of protein for ourselves to changing what we feed farm animals and pets. It also means reducing our reliance on chemicals and coming up with more resilient crops and sustainable farming practices.

The world needs to rapidly come up with new technologies to produce more food while doing less damage. BNEF chose three companies that are working on different solutions to that challenge. In today's newsletter Bloomberg Green reporter Coco Liu looks at two of them: a company that's using crop-spraying drones and another that's developed an alternative protein from fermented microbes. You can read about all of the winners here.

Click here to read the full version of this story on Bloomberg.com.

For the past three years, Terry Aberhart has watched the spindly, fixed-wing drones zip across the big skies over his farm in Canada's Saskatchewan province, testing a technology that could be the future of weeding.

Fitted with an artificial intelligence system, the drones are designed by local startup Precision AI to spot, identify and kill the weeds without drenching the entire crop in chemicals.

"I'm on the list for one of the first machines when they become available," says Aberhart, a sustainable farming enthusiast. "The current technology is designed for maximum coverage and to hit everything in the field."

Crew members Mark Lyon, Ron Graddy and Daniel Peters bring a drone in for landing. Photographer: Rebecca Noble for Bloomberg Green

For decades, big-acre crops like corn and wheat have been treated by spraying tractors that would move across vast farmlands, unleashing waterfalls of herbicide from long arms stretched above the crops, all to zap weeds that are often tiny and scattered about.

Apart from the environmental toll, that conventional spray-it-all approach also results in colossal financial waste. Aberhart spent nearly C$1 million ($745,000) on herbicides in 2022 alone to protect the wheat, canola and pulses growing on a slice of prairie larger than Manhattan. "Even if we could save 50% on average, it's a huge saving," he says.

The problem of combating weeds in a sustainable way is more urgent today than ever. Scientists say global warming supercharges the growth of certain weeds that compete for nutrients with crops, threatening food security. But every drop of herbicide farmers spray comes with an environmental cost, polluting soil, contaminating drinking water and contributing to a catastrophic loss of biodiversity.

Peters checks the wind speeds for the drone test flight. Photographer: Rebecca Noble for Bloomberg Green

Precision AI is among a handful of companies turning to advanced technology to address the problem of chemical overuse in agriculture. Founded in 2017 by serial tech entrepreneur Daniel McCann, the company uses images of 15,000 plant species to train computer algorithms to distinguish staple crops (think corn, wheat and soybeans) from unwanted weeds. The drone's camera can "see" anything bigger than half a sesame seed and its AI identifies weeds with 96% accuracy, spraying the intended target alone.

Precision AI says its approach can reduce herbicide use by as much as 90% compared to traditional methods.

Precision's drones are capable of carrying five US gallons of liquid (nearly 20 liters) per flight and covering roughly 80 acres (0.3 square km) an hour. As the drone flies 4 to 6 feet (1.2 to 1.8 meters) above ground, its AI system makes real-time decisions and applies herbicides only where needed.

"We can't continue to do things the way we've always done them," McCann says. "We have to grow food smarter."

Click here to continue reading and to share the full version of this story on Bloomberg.com.

Like getting the Green Daily? Subscribe to Bloomberg.com for unlimited access to breaking news on climate and energy, data-driven reporting and graphics and Bloomberg Green magazine.

Protein is critical to a healthy diet, but producing meat is a lengthy and inefficient process. It takes months, if not years, to breed and rear a calf or lamb, and vast areas of precious farmland to feed them. Meanwhile, consumers worried about health, animal cruelty and environmental impact are increasingly looking for planet-friendly alternatives.

Hamburg-based biotech startup MicroHarvest is one of a handful of early-stage companies investigating microbes, which exist in single-celled form, as a potential solution. It claims it's found a formula that will allow it to grow fermented microbes on an industrial scale.

MicroHarvest's ultimate plan is to bring the protein from factory to fork in a matter of hours. But first up: it's making a protein booster for fish and shrimp feed.

Have a look at one of the world's fastest protein production processes.

Maya Dibyana retrieves bacteria samples from the freezer at MicroHarvest. Photographer: Ériver Hijano for Bloomberg Green

Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods wanted to upend the world's $1 trillion meat industry. But plant-based meat at the moment looks more like a niche category than a meaningful displacement of an entrenched industry. What's the problem? Bloomberg News reporter Deena Shanker investigates here. You can also listen to her discuss the subject on The Big Take's podcast.

Kim Kardashian, taste consultant. Source: Beyond Meat

What happened to good old fashioned veggie burgers? These patties have long been the beef alternative for vegetarians. Bloomberg looks at how the biggest brands in US supermarkets stack up to faux-meat.

'Cultivated' meat is gaining buzz. Advocates say cell-based meat could reduce emissions and improve biodiversity, while critics argue that for now it's mostly hype.

There are a lot of fish alternatives in the lab, too. Singapore is leading a charge to allow, regulate, and ultimately normalize the commercial sale of cultivated seafood. It's enthusiasm is matched by that of dozens of startups around the world exploring ways to grow cell-based oysters, lobsters, and other marine species in laboratory settings.

For your ears. On Zero, Venkat Viswanathan, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, explains why creating a battery light and powerful enough to lift an aircraft is so fiendishly difficult.

For your eyes. On the latest Getting Warmer, Kal Penn explores the successes and challenges of climate activism. In the Shetland Islands, we meet Tessa Khan, a climate activist and litigator, as she attempts to build a grassroots campaign against a proposed oil field.

Source: Bloomberg Originals

The Grenfell disaster in London was a wake-up call for the construction industry in the UK. It also brought timber construction to a near-halt, even though the material played no role in the high-rise fire. Olivia Rudgard looks at the status of engineered wood projects in the UK as part of the Bloomberg Green series Timber Town, which covers the global rise of timber as a low-carbon building material.

The exterior of the Black and White building, in east London.

Texas has become a clean energy king. Solar permitting in the state is uncomplicated. Connecting projects to the electric grid is straightforward. Yet that golden age of laissez-faire may be drawing to a close, as Texas Republicans move to slow the greening of the grid.

Offshore projects face more headwinds. The Pentagon is sounding alarms over Biden administration plans to advance offshore wind along the central Atlantic US coast, warning that almost all of the new terrain eyed for development conflicts with military operations.

Heat is surging in India. Temperatures are soaring across the country this week, sparking warnings about heat waves and increasing the risk of blackouts, potentially exposing millions of people to heat exhaustion or deadly heat stroke.