All the talk recently about the successes of Project Better Place in transforming the mainstream transportation market for private vehicles has understandably overshadowed other niche markets that can benefit from injections of clean technologies.

One of those niches is that for industrial machinery that is used in agriculture and agricultural transport.  Modern industrial agriculture is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, and contributes significantly to the regional carbon footprint of the U.S., the European Union, Australia, and increasingly, China.

According to the Independent Science Panel, agriculture is responsible for 25% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, 60% of methane gas emissions and 80% of nitrous oxide.  According to its report on agriculture and global warming,

the most energy-intensive components of modern industrial agriculture are the production of nitrogen fertiliser, farm machinery and pumped irrigation. They account for more than 90% of the total direct and indirect energy used in agriculture…It has been estimated that to produce a tonne of cereals or vegetables by means of modern agriculture requires 6 to 10 times more energy than by using sustainable agricultural methods.

In addition, the strong link between current agricultural practices and perpetuating global hunger is a vicious cycle that screams for an answer. As the Environmental News Network states,

Global warming has severely altered traditional patterns of agricultural production and, coupled with severe drought conditions in sub-Saharan Africa, has pushed millions to the brink of starvation. Poor land management, the conversion of food producing croplands to the production of biofuels feedstock, and the overuse of nutrient-depleting fertilizers also are contributing to declining agricultural production, particularly in the developing world.

Clean technologies still have multiple insertion points to influence the carbon intensity of agriculture.  Not only in the making of inputs, such as fertilizers, that go into food production, but also extending to harvesting and delivery of the output to a final consumer.

Yet, encouraging signs for technological improvement along the agro-production chain are starting to be seen on the horizon.  For instance, a recent announcement by New Holland, a company that designs, manufactures, and sells agricultural tractors, combine harvesters, hay and forage equipment, grape harvesters and industrial equipment, states that it plan to debut the prototype of a hydrogen powered fuel cell tractor at the forthcoming French SIMA show in February 2009.

The tractor, named NH2, was the result of development work conducted by the Fiat Group and Iveco.  Iveco has partnered in the past with UK’s ZeTek, which itself had an agreement with Medis Technologies of Israel to produce fuel cell technologies for vehicles.  The NH2 tractor replaces a traditional diesel engine with a fuel cell, whose chemical reaction is converted into electric power and then stored in one of three lithium ion batteries. This electrical energy is then used to drive an electric transmission.  The vehicle’s only emission is water.  The hydrogen will possibly be generated on site using water electrolysis technology, using electricity possibly supplied by wind or solar power.

It will be interesting to see how much interest the NH2 will generate, and what are its cost comparisons to the standard equipment.  Even if this particular tractor is not widely adopted, it will spur activity to bring fuel cells and other innovations to the estimated $70B agricultural equipment industry, which is a good thing.

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