Clean Energy with Mike Casey

Mike Casey is the CEO and Co-founder of NZ Zero, which seeks to support New Zealand growers and producers in the journey towards zero fossil fuel use. Not only does Mike talk the talk, but he also walks the walk as an owner/operator of Forest Lodge Orchard near Wānaka, alongside his wife, producing cherries without the use of fossil fuels. Mike is deeply passionate about being proactive in creating solutions to reduce the impact of the climate crisis, as well as sharing his learnings and supporting others who are willing to go against the status quo.

With a background in computer programming, Mike has alwasys been deeply involved in technology. After working in Sydney for 12 years founding a start-up website that helped university students find their first job and then selling it to Seek, Mike and his wife decided that it was time to head back home to New Zealand. Their love of the outdoors meant that they were drawn to the Queenstown Lakes/Central Otago region, and they bought 9 ha of land half an hour from Wānaka, with a vision to see what they could make of it and start making some income off the land. With a passion for improving the climate, Mike and his wife decided to plant 9300 cherry trees over 6 ha and while those trees sequestered around 3.8 tonnes of carbon per year, it was nowhere near offsetting the emissions of a traditional cherry operation of this size which emits around 60 tonees of carbon annually. For Mike and his wife, this wasn’t something they were happy with, so they sought to embark on the journey of entirely moving away from fossil fuels by electrifying all parts of their operation.

Mike emphasises the important point that he is not a farmer, and that he has been able to rely on some amazing people that have helped him and his wife to learn how to grow good cherries. While his background is in technology, Mike sees this as something he can contribute back in the other direction, to use his knowledge to help others make farming more sustainable, but also more efficient on the bottom line through the use of technology, hopefully leading to a much more productive horticulture and agriculture sector.

 

Mike’s take on sustainability

For Mike, one of the big problems is that sustainability is such a generic word that can cover such a wide range of things, and that this can also become meaningless to people because it means so many different things to different people. Mike’s perspective on sustainability is led by his work and passion for the climate.

My whole thing about sustainability right now is that we’re facing a climate emergency like no other. How do we produce food with minimal emissions into the environment, and that’s sort of what I’m classing sustainability and I know sustainability covers all range of other topics in agriculture and horticulture, as it should, but that’s what my main focus is on lowering emissions as much as possible.

Mike isn’t only focused on his own actions, but is deeply invested in helping others along their journeys and doing that in a sustainable way by focusing on leading by example and ‘being the person in the middle’. He wanted to take the approach of becoming a farmer and then trying to do the best with the resources that are available to set the scene to change the discussion and hopefully point it in the right direction.

I think one of the big things is that I don’t want to be someone that tells farmers what they should be doing from an academic perspective. All I wanna do is be showing farmers what I’ve done and showing that it’s possible and sharing as much of the information about how I’ve done it with them so that they can make up their own decisions about the journey that they wanna take, because I think the moment you start to preach to people, it can have a negative effect. And so, the best thing you can do is essentially lead by example.

 

NZ Zero

NZ Zero is a consumer brand and a certification based around the elimination of fossil fuels. Mike points out that at the moment there are certifications out there where you can offset a lot of emissions that you make, which is great for unavoidable emissions, but what Mike has shown through his operations is that they’ve been able to eliminate fossil fuels entirely. The next part of that is being able to present something to the consumer that symbolises real behavioural change in the way that food is grown, and Mike hopes that other farmers will want to join them and use this brand of NZ Zero to market their products, which are synonymous with climate action, and that consumers choose to support this approach by choosing these products in store.

The big thing at the moment is that everything I’ve done in my orchard, there is a payback period of about seven years. So, if we look at the cost of diesel and the cost of power, what we call the incremental cost of capital, which is the additional cost of electric equipment over and above that of diesel, it works out to be about 7 years of operations and I would have paid back that incremental cost. So, when you start with a blank canvas like I did, at 7 years, it’s pretty much a no brainer to look at going down this path, at least in portions now. If you’re a replacing existing technology with new technology, i.e.  throwing out perfectly functional technology just to replace it for the sake of carbon, it’s more like a 15-year payback period, so that’s not something that you know is really reasonable at the moment, but at least if you’re starting with a blank canvas, establishing a new farm or a new orchard in our case, this electric technology is looking like it’s worthwhile now. And so the big thing about this is that if NZ Zero can achieve a 10 to 15% premium to the gate returns to the farmer, we can bring that period for seven years down to about 18 months.

So, NZ Zero’s goal is to be able to present to the customer a unique selling proposition, which is in this case zero fossil fuel and that customer to be willing to pay slightly more for it because it’s good for the climate. If we can achieve a 10 to 15% premium at the gate, it makes even replacing all of the incumbent diesel technology on farms worthwhile doing now. And so that’s what NZ Zero is all about if that makes sense.

Mike has achieved the 10-15% premium target, but emphasises that it’s only been on a small crop. Their orchard will likely be at full production by the summer of 2024/25 when they’ll be producing over 100 tonnes fo cherries a year. Last season their crop was too small to pick from an economic perspective, but funding from AGMARDT allowed them to be able to pick and harvest their two tonne crop, put it into the NZ Zero brand and sell it through Farro Fresh in Auckland, and were able to demonstrate the 15% premium by doing different price trial.

Mike makes a point of emphasising that there are lots of funding opportunities at the moment around decarbonisation and innovation, and these grants will continue because climate change is going to continue.

“Find your opportunities, seek them out and grasp them with both hands.”

 

SDG #7: Affordable and clean energy, and the SDG that most aligns with Mike

SDG 7 is all about ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. Targets for this goal are focused around increased energy efficiency to increased renewable energy to expanding infrastructure and technology in developing countries. One thing that Mike stresses that people need to understand is that New Zealand in particular, already has such a highly renewable grid system because of our hydro- and wind-electricity generation, therefore the best thing that we can do as farmers is eliminate the burning of fossil fuels on site and convert to electrics.

Mike has set a goal for himself that he is trying to eliminate his entire energy bill. In reality, he thinks he will come up slightly short, but not by very much. This is an awesome example of someone who has set themselves a goal, and yes maybe it won’t quite get there, but his aspiration is to be as efficient as possible and create positive impact to the greatest extent within his means.

“So I think in reality, if you add up all my line charges, all my consumption charges, all the admin charges when it comes to power, considering I’ve of course got no diesel bills, no energy bills from diesel cause I don’t burn any and also having a look at the amount of money that I’m making through exporting power back to the grid at certain times, I think my total energy bill for the year might fall at under $1000. I was hoping for a net zero energy bill. I just don’t think we’re quite going to achieve that. But you know, we look like we’re still going to be saving in vicinity of, you know, $40 – 50,000 a year in energy costs by doing what I’ve done. And that’s what leads to the sort of seven-year payback period.

“The government at the moment has a target of making our grid entirely renewable by 2030. That’s all very well and good, but it’s a problem if everybody continues to burn diesel on the side at the end of it. You know, a molecule of carbon dioxide is a molecule of carbon dioxide, and whether it’s burned in the diesel generation or in a tractor on farm, or whether it is emitted through Huntly: is it’s the same thing. So one thing we’ve got to look at is being a bit more pragmatic about the way we approach clean energy.”

When it comes to the SDG’s, Mike says Climate Action is what aligns with him most, which may be of no surprise.

That’s the thing that I personally have identified that I’m most worried about. I’ve got young children and out of all the environmental issues, this is the one that I see. The only one that I see as being a truly existential crisis for humanity. So that’s what I’m trying to focus most heavily on for sure.

Mike points out that we’ve also got to look at decarbonisation and climate action in the context of the economics behind it as well in order to ensure human survival.

You know, we’ve got to take both into account but thankfully I have a shred of hope that we’re going to figure our way, wiggle our way out at least some of this problem because we’re now at the point where I’ve been able to demonstrate that the best of the decision for the climate is also the best decision for the bottom line. We know from Western society with two things you know, align nicely and you get great results. And so, anyone who is your listener that wants to come out and see what we’ve done, get a bit more understanding of the financials of how we’ve done it and how we’ve calculated that seven years, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be eliminating entirely every single fossil fuel on site, but maybe there’s some low hanging fruit that you don’t even realise is that easy to change, the gate’s always open to come and see what we’re doing.

 

Mike’s take on the biggest challenge to the NZ Ag sector regarding sustainability

From Mike’s perspective, one of the biggest challenges we have in agriculture is the argument around agricultural emissions and how they are accounted for in the climate. For Mike, what he keeps going back to more and more is the need to eliminate fossil fuels as humans, and if we do that we will solve the climate crisis. People are always going to want to consume milk, beef and lamb, so we are always going to need to produce food and have an agricultural industry. There is a lot of heat on farmers around emissions, but our focus needs to be on what we can do now.

We can have everyone saying that we can sit there and wait for genetics to catch up around methane emissions, and we can. But what can we do in the meantime, and in a lot of cases, I think it comes down to eliminating fossil fuels. If you listen to this and you have a diesel irrigation system, that’s probably the first thing that you can look at changing. And maybe in a few years’ time you might get to the ability of completely eliminating fossil fuels.

And how can we use that as a strength? Mike emphasises that NZ already has a highly renewable power grid, so we have a unique challenge. Our geographical location is always going to present a challenge for our carbon footprint and the food miles that result in getting our products to market across the globe. However, Mike is adamant that we can actually become the most sustainable food producers in the world, no matter where our products are being consumed, if we tackle what we need to tackle, which is emissions on farm and in particular, I think fossil fuels on farm”.

For more info on NZ Zero, head to www.nz0.com

Listen to Mike’s podcast episode here:

1 thought on “Clean Energy with Mike Casey”

  1. Dear Mike Casey
    Should you ever have time to visit Oamaru you would be very welcome. I am President of Oamaru Rotary and I would suggest to our club that we try to organise a public meeting, perhaps in our splendid Opera House, so that you can spread the word. Here in the land of dinosaur utes and petrolheads and wood burning homes we need someone to shine the light. When you suggest to people that things should be done for environmental gain their eyes glaze over instead of being inspired at the thought of making the world a better place for their grandchildren. Which of course was why many of their ancestors struggled hard in this beautiful country, so how can we let them down by being hoodwinked by fossil fuel promoters?

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