MOSS LANDING – Highway 1 was closed and evacuations were ordered within the Moss Landing community and Elkhorn Slough area after a serious fire broke out Thursday afternoon at a battery storage plant in Moss Landing in northern Monterey County.

The fire, which burned uncontrolled Thursday night and produced huge flames and dangerous clouds of black smoke, was reported at the ability on Highway 1 around 3 p.m., Monterey County spokesman Nicholas Pasculli said.

RELATED: Energy Storage at Moss Landing: A Smokey Challenge for a New Chapter

“It is imperative that residents obey the evacuation order and follow the instructions of the police and fire departments,” Pasculli said. “In this situation, we take the protection of life and property very seriously. We urge people to follow the evacuation order and move to a safe location.”

Evacuations of about 1,500 people have been ordered for areas from Moss Landing south of Elkhorn Slough, north of Molera Road and Monterey Dunes Way and west of Castroville Boulevard and Elkhorn Road to the ocean, he said.

Pasculli said the Monterey County Sheriff's Office called other agencies within the county to help with the emergency.

“It is a serious incident,” he said. “All resources from the county and our neighboring jurisdictions were deployed to assist with this incident.”

The plant belongs to the Texas company Vistra Energy and is considered one of the most important battery storage power plants on this planet. It incorporates tens of hundreds of lithium batteries that store electricity generated through the day from solar and other sources to be used at night. Such battery storage plants are a vital a part of California's efforts to convert most of its electricity generation to renewable sources.

“You can’t sugarcoat it. “This is a disaster,” Monterey County Supervisor Glen Church told KSBW-TV. “This is extremely disturbing.”

Church said the fireplace was “contained” in a concrete constructing whose roof had collapsed.

“We don't think there's any real danger of it expanding outward and penetrating further into where it's inside,” he said. “There are a lot of batteries in there and the system is on fire quite a lot.”

The plant is positioned on the location of a now-closed Fifties PG&E Moss Landing natural gas plant, visible from its huge smokestacks near Moss Landing Harbor. The first phase was accomplished in 2020 and expanded to 750 megawatts in 2023. Vistra sells the electricity stored there to PG&E, which also owns a separate 182-megawatt, 256-tesla battery storage facility on the north side of the location. “Megapack” battery packs. This system didn’t look like burning at 8 p.m

Employees on the Vistra plant called the North Monterey County Fire Protection District for assistance after a fireplace was discovered on the 300-megawatt Phase I energy storage facility, company spokeswoman Jenny Lyon said in an email to this news organization.

Lyon said all personnel were safely evacuated.

“Our top priority is the safety of the community and our staff,” she said, “and Vistra greatly appreciates the continued support of our local emergency responders.”

Lyon said the reason for the fireplace has not yet been determined, but an investigation will begin once the fireplace is extinguished.

Lithium battery fires are notoriously difficult to place out. They burn at high temperatures and may emit toxic gases that may cause respiratory problems, skin burns and eye irritation.

There have been other fires at the ability.

Fires broke out on the Vistra plant on September 4, 2021 and February 14, 2022. Investigations revealed that they were brought on by a malfunction of a sprinkler system that released water and caused several units to overheat.

Then in September 2022, a fireplace broke out at PG&E's Elkhorn battery plant. Police closed Highway 1 for 12 hours. An investigation determined the cause was an improperly installed vent guard on considered one of the 256 units, which allowed rainwater to enter and short-circuit the batteries. There were no injuries to firefighters, PG&E employees or the general public.

Governor Gavin Newsom then signed a law requiring battery storage power plants in California to work with local fire departments to develop emergency plans and increase fire protection.

“Expanding the state’s battery storage is critical to achieving our clean energy goals,” state Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, who authored the bill, said in an interview last yr. “But we also need to ensure that these facilities have safety systems in place to protect the health and well-being of workers and surrounding communities.”

Last summer, after two fires broke out at San Diego County battery storage facilities, San Diego County regulators asked county officials to impose stricter rules that may restrict battery storage facilities near homes, schools and other facilities. And when Vistra proposed constructing a big battery plant in Morro Bay, residents there approved a measure on the November ballot that they hoped would block construction.

Battery storage has increased sevenfold in California over the past five years, from 1,474 megawatts in 2020 to 10,383 megawatts last summer. One megawatt is sufficient to power 750 households.

On Thursday evening, the Castroville Recreation Center at 11261 Crane St. served as a brief evacuation point for individuals who needed to depart their homes.

Highway 1 is closed in each directions between Highway 183 and Struve Road. There isn’t any estimated time for the roadway to reopen.

Originally published: January 16, 2025 at 7:40 pm PST

Imagine – it's the mid-Nineteenth century and also you're riding your high-wheeled penny-farthing down a dusty road. Sure, there could also be some bumps, but in case you lose your balance you'll find yourself on a comparatively soft dirt road. But over time, these streets are replaced by paving stones, cobblestones, bricks or wood slats. All of those materials are much harder and yet still quite bumpy.

As paved roads develop into more widely utilized in the United States and Europe, cyclists also use them began to suffer gruesome skull fractures and other serious head injuries from falls.

As head injuries became more common, people searched for head protection. But the primary bicycle helmets were very different from today's helmets.

I’m a materials engineer who teaches a course on materials science and engineering in sports at Georgia Tech. The course covers many topics, but particularly helmets, as they’re utilized in many various sports, including cycling, and the materials from which they’re made play a very important role in how they function. Over the a long time, people have used a wide selection of materials to guard their heads while cycling, and firms proceed to develop latest and revolutionary materials.

In the start there was the pith helmet.

Pith helmets

The first head protection concept introduced to the cycling world was a Hat made from marrowthat is the spongy bark present in the trunk of sola plants, . Pith helmet craftsmen pressed the pith into sheets and laminated it over dome-shaped molds to create a helmet shape. Then they covered the hats with canvas to make them weatherproof.

Pith helmets were a far cry from what we’d call a helmet today, but they endured until the early twentieth century, when cycling clubs emerged. Since pith helmets offered little to no ventilation, racers began using them Halo-shaped leather helmets. These had higher airflow and were more comfortable, although they didn't protect the pinnacle significantly better.

Leather halo helmets

The original concept for the Halo helmet called for a straightforward strip of leather to wrap across the brow. But these halo helmets quickly evolved as riders placed additional stripes lengthwise from front to back. They wrapped the leather straps with wool.

The helmet manufacturers then ensure higher head protection began adding more layers of leather strips to extend the thickness of the helmet. Finally, they added various materials resembling cotton, foam and other textiles to those leather layers for higher protection.

While these had higher air circulation than tropical hats, the leather “hairnet” helmets still offered little or no protection within the event of a fall on a paved surface. And like Mark, the leather helmets fell apart when exposed to sweat and rain.

Despite these disadvantages, leather stripe helmets dominated the market for several a long time as cycling evolved throughout the twentieth century.

Then, within the Nineteen Seventies, a nonprofit organization dedicated to testing motorcycle helmets got here calling the Snell Foundation latest standards for bicycle helmets published. They set their standards so high that they only allowed lightweight motorcycle helmets, which most cyclists didn't need to wear.

New materials and latest helmets

Motorcycle equipment manufacturer Bell Motorsports responded to the brand new standards Release of the Bell Biker in 1975. Expanded polystyrene or EPS was used for this helmet. EPS is identical foam used to make Styrofoam coolers. It is light and absorbs energy well.

Involved in the development of the Bell Biker Spraying EPS right into a dome shape. Manufacturers used small pellets of a really hard plastic – polycarbonate or PC – to form an outer shell after which attach it to the skin of the EPS.

Unlike the tropical and leather helmets, this design was lightweight, load-bearing, shock-absorbing and well-ventilated. The PC shell provided a smooth surface in order that within the event of a fall, the helmet would slide across the pavement relatively than being torn around and caught, which could lead to abrupt head rotation and concussions and other head and neck injuries.

Over the subsequent twenty years, as cycling became more popular, helmet manufacturers tried to search out the proper balance between lightweight and ventilated helmets while providing impact protection.

To reduce weight, an organization called Giro Sport Design has developed a pure EPS helmet covered by a skinny Lycra fabric cover as a substitute of a tough PC shell. This design reduced the burden of the PC case and improved ventilation.

In 1989, an organization called Pro Tec introduced a helmet that had a nylon mesh built into the EPS foam core. The nylon mesh significantly increased the structural support of the helmet without the added weight of the PC shell.

Meanwhile, as cycling became more competitive, many riders and manufacturers began doing it Development of more aerodynamic helmets Use of existing materials. A revolutionary teardrop-style helmet was introduced on the 1984 Olympics.

Casual cycling enthusiasts now also wear teardrop helmets.

Helmets available on the market today

Helmet manufacturers proceed to innovate. Today, many business brands use a tough polyethylene terephthalate or PET shell across the EPS foam as a substitute of a PC shell to extend the protection and sturdiness of the helmet while reducing costs.

Meanwhile, some brands still use PC cases. Instead of gluing them to the EPS foam, the The shell itself serves as a moldwhere the EPS expands to suit inside. This eliminates several process steps within the production of helmets, in addition to any gaps between the froth and the shell. This process makes the helmet each stronger and inexpensive to provide.

As helmets proceed to evolve to supply more protection at even lower weight, materials called copolymers like acrylonitrile butadiene styrene are replacing PC and PET shell materials.

There are also materials which are easier and cheaper to provide, resembling: B. expanded polyurethane and expanded polypropylene begins to interchange the ever-present EPS core.

Just as leather and pith helmets would look strange to a cyclist today, bicycle helmets in a century may very well be made out of completely latest and revolutionary materials.

Ginseng season begins throughout the Appalachian region in September. Thousands of individuals roam the mountains in search of hard-to-reach places where this beneficial plant grows.

Many people know ginseng as an ingredient in vitamin supplements or herbal tea. This ginseng is grown commercially on farms in Wisconsin and Ontario, Canada. In contrast, wild American ginseng is an understory plant that may survive for a long time within the forests of the Appalachian Mountains. The plant's taproot grows throughout its life and is sold for lots of of dollars per pound, primarily to East Asian customers who devour it for health reasons.

Because it’s an especially beneficial medicinal plant, harvesting ginseng has helped families in mountainous regions of states corresponding to Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Ohio survive economic ups and downs because the late 18th century.

The majority of the harvest takes place within the long-established Appalachian Mountains. Forest commons – Forests throughout the region which have historically been managed and utilized by local residents. Many people in Appalachian still imagine that forests ought to be common property, no less than in practicealthough large parts of the region's forests have been transferred to state or federal ownership over the past century.

Recently, nevertheless, it has develop into tougher for ginseng collectors to reap ginseng on public lands, corresponding to national forests, and those that violate the regulations face larger fines and sometimes even prison sentences.

This is since the ginseng populations a fraction of their historical level. Government Agencies, scientist And The media have claimed that contemporary ginseng collectors within the Appalachian forests had harvested an excessive amount of wild ginseng.

I’m a Environmental geographer that focuses on rural livelihoods and conservation in North American forests. In my view, large-scale threats to ginseng, including mining and climate change, are greater concerns than small-scale harvesting by negligent ginseng miners. I imagine that many ginseng miners could be beneficial partners in conservation.

Ginseng and law enforcement

Ginseng was added to Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora in 1975. This indicated that the plant was not threatened at the moment, but could develop into so. Today, ginseng is assessed as endangered in 13 of the 19 states that allow cultivation and salesubject to government regulations.

These regulations include, amongst others:

– A harvest period from September 1st to late autumn

– Harvesting bans on certain forms of land, corresponding to state parks and wildlife refuges

– A requirement that harvested plants three leaves or “tines”, an approximate value for the age of the plant

– The requirement that ginseng harvesters plant the ginseng berries they’ve dug up on the harvest site.

Over the past decade, state and federal authorities have tightened ginseng regulations and increased enforcement, spurred largely by rising ginseng prices and evidence that ginseng was sometimes sold on the black market. in exchange for illegal drugs.

In 2018, for instance, West Virginia increased fines for illegal ginseng cultivation from $100 to $500 to $1,000 for a primary offense. That same 12 months, Ohio began using K-9 dogs to Discovering ginseng within the possession of individuals suspected of illegal digging.

States with significant ginseng crops often conduct undercover operations to uncover illegal harvests. Some national parks and nature reserves Dyeing or microchipping ginseng plants to make it easier to discover illegal collections.

Meanwhile, the US Forest Service has banned ginseng harvesting within the national forests of Kentucky, North Carolina, Georgia And TennesseeThese closures affect over 5,000 square miles (13,000 square kilometers) of forest land within the Appalachian Mountains – an area larger than the state of Connecticut.

Major threats

Stricter enforcement has increased the variety of ginseng-related convictions within the states through the AppalachiansMany individuals who have been sentenced to a positive or imprisonment Traders or other actors within the illegal ginseng supply chain.

However, in response to game wardens I spoke to, lots of the arrests are of ginseng hunters who don’t strictly follow the regulations, corresponding to harvesting sustainably but in closed areas. Usually, these hunters still see the forest as a standard good that everybody should give you the option to make use of, and don’t imagine the present ginseng regulations are fair or sensible.

Some scientists call this phenomenon “Folk crime”, a collective term for widely tolerated offenses corresponding to illegally crossing the road in cities or hunting wild animals within the countryside.

My Archival and ethnographic research shows that since no less than the late nineteenth century, common ginseng diggers have been blamed for the shortage of ginseng. For example, a book from 1903 states: Horticultural scientist MG Kains argued that “the main perpetrators of the extermination of the native supplies are the ginseng miners… they act without judgment.”

But the graves usually are not and never were the one reason for small ginseng populations. Since the tip of the nineteenth century, forests in practically your entire eastern United States were deforested for agriculture, fuel and industry.

Over the last 30 years, greater than 6,000 square kilometers of forest have been coal was mined in open-cast minesThis technology removes all plants, soil and stones on the surface to achieve the coal directly below. Open-pit mining also buries rivers under displaced earth and rock, deteriorates water quality and may result in Loss of enormous forest areas.

Ginseng patches were also destroyed for Residential areas And overgrazed by white-tailed deerAnd climate change is making Winters are warmer and extreme rainfall more frequent within the central Appalachians, Change in growth conditions.

Excavators can support nature conservation

I actually have interviewed dozens of ginseng farmers, and just about all of them harvest only a portion of the plants in a patch and wait until the berries on one plant are ripe before digging it up and replanting the berries.

Some ginseng diggers have been cultivating secret, distant ginseng fields for a few years. Others have bought and planted seeds to determine recent populations. A 2016 study found that seeds planted by ginseng diggers germinate at a much higher rate as seeds that fall naturally to the forest floor.

Other researchers have also highlighted Maintenance measures for excavatorsThe Complex pressures on ginseng populations and the injustice except Appalachians out of their historic forest communitiesNevertheless, the story of the “crooked excavator” persists.

Another way may very well be to rebuild ginseng dredges on a big scale. There is already a robust movement to cultivate ginseng seeds under existing forest crowns on private propertybut most ginseng diggers don’t own land. A complementary initiative could distribute seeds to them for sowing in designated zones. By participating, they might obtain a permit to reap ginseng in state or national forests.

The threat to ginseng in Appalachia is a legitimate concern, and it is crucial to curb wasteful overharvesting. But ginseng diggers have made the existence and persistence of ginseng populations possible, they usually may very well be knowledgeable, skillful allies of conservation. In my view, portraying them as villains and banning them from nearly all public lands is each unfair and ineffective.

A Boar's Head deli in Virginia linked to an outbreak of deadly food poisoning has repeatedly violated federal regulations, including mold, insects, liquid dripping from the ceiling and meat and grease residue on partitions, floors and equipment, in accordance with newly released records.

According to documents released under a federal Freedom of Information Act request, state inspectors have logged 69 cases of “non-compliance” with federal regulations over the past 12 months, including several in recent weeks.

Inspections on the factory have been suspended and it’s going to remain closed “until the facility can demonstrate its ability to produce safe products,” U.S. Department of Agriculture officials said in an announcement Thursday. Boar's Head officials had halted production on the Jarratt, Virginia, factory in late July.

The plant is linked to the deaths of at the very least nine people and the hospitalization of about 50 others in 18 states. All became ailing with listeria after eating sausage products made by Boar's Head Provisions Co. Inc. The company recalled greater than 7 million kilos of products last month after tests confirmed that listeria bacteria in Boar's Head products was making people sick.

Between August 1, 2023, and August 2, 2024, inspectors found “heavily discolored meat deposits” and “meat mist on the walls and large chunks of meat on the floor.” They also documented flies “flying in and out of the curing bins” and “black mold spots” on a ceiling. One inspector described pools of blood on the ground and “a rancid odor in the cooler.” According to the documents, plant staff were repeatedly told they weren’t meeting requirements.

“I find it disgusting and disgraceful,” said Garshon Morgenstein, whose 88-year-old father, Gunter, died on July 18 from a listeria infection traced to Boar's Head liver sausage. “I'm just more shocked that this was allowed to happen.”

The plant was inspected by Virginia state authorities at the side of the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service. When problems were identified, Boar's Head “took corrective action in accordance with FSIS regulations,” officials said. According to essentially the most recent available records, no enforcement actions were taken against Boar's Head between January and March.

The documents, first reported by CBS News, didn’t include test results confirming listeria on the plant. The bacteria thrive on floors, partitions and drains, in cracks and crevices, and hard-to-clean parts of food processing equipment. Pests like flies can easily spread the bacteria throughout a factory, and the germ can survive in biofilms – thin, slimy collections of bacteria which might be difficult to eradicate.

Representatives for Boar's Head didn’t reply to a request for comment from The Associated Press, but a spokesperson told CBS that the corporate regrets the impact of the recall and makes food safety its highest priority. On its website, the corporate said all issues raised by government inspectors were immediately corrected.

Barbara Kowalcyk, director of the Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security at George Washington University, said the records raise quite a few warning flags.

“I wonder why the company’s management and regulators have not taken further action,” she said.

Donald Schaffner, a food science and safety expert at Rutgers University who reviewed the inspection documents, said reports of condensation throughout the factory are concerning since it is a known risk factor for listeria.

“The fact that they keep having the same problems several weeks apart is an indication that they are really struggling to keep up with hygiene,” Schaffner said.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 1,600 people within the United States change into ailing with listeria annually and about 260 people die from it. Those most vulnerable are people over 65, pregnant women, and folks with weakened immune systems.

Bill Marler, a Seattle lawyer who has sued several firms over food poisoning, said the conditions described within the inspection reports were the worst he had seen in three many years.

Garshon Morgenstein said his father bought Boar's Head products due to company's repute.

“For the rest of my life, every time I see or hear the name Boar's Head, I will think of my father's death,” he said.

For the umpteenth time within the last 60 years, Californian electricity consumers are being pressured for more cash. As usual, the explanation given is that they should pay a whole lot of thousands and thousands of dollars to maintain the facility on.

But later, Governor Gavin Newsom panicked because renewable energy was coming online more slowly than expected, so he negotiated a deal that may extend the nuclear plant's life until 2022 and supply state loans that the federal government would underwrite.

Does anyone seriously consider the administration will do this if Donald Trump returns to the White House? The same goes for the newest “loan” that state legislatures reluctantly approved this summer as a part of their budget agreement with Newsom. PG&E mustn’t be expected to pay it back.

Currently, it isn’t federal taxpayers who’re funding PG&E to maintain the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant running beyond next yr. Instead, it’s electricity customers nearly in every single place in California. Yes, even in case your electricity comes through Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric, or PacifiCorp, you’ll still be held accountable for Diablo.

A giant query is why this extension can be forced on thousands and thousands of people that don't deal directly with PG&E. Newsom's answer is that the facility from Diablo Canyon is required to stop blackouts during this yr's record heat, even when that power must travel a whole lot of miles through the state's power grid to be useful.

But what about all of the so-called “peaker plants” that operate in periods of high electricity demand across the state? When they were approved, their purpose was to maintain the grid running during times of utmost need. Are they redundant now that Diablo Canyon has been restarted? Utility officials and the ignorant state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) aren't answering that query.

Instead, thousands and thousands of electricity customers are forced to pay ever-increasing bills without argument. Most do it themselves, shelling out whatever amount is on their monthly bill. And who's to say Diablo Canyon shall be more reliable than ever? If it really works, this power plant can produce 8.5% of all of the energy needed to run all of California's electrical facilities.

However, Diablo Canyon was shut down for much of 2022 since it violated PG&E's own management procedures. Those outages occurred when a hydrogen cooling system in Unit 2 of the plant leaked and needed to be manually shut down. Hi, Peaker.

Diablo was equally unreliable in 2020 and 2021, when it experienced 149 days of unplanned outages over a 476-day period. Essentially, the plant produced next to nothing for a 3rd of the time. How smart is it to depend on a plant that has proven liable to prolonged outages for backup power? What happens when those outages occur during heat waves and other times of extremely high air con usage?

It's all a part of an extended line of California governors, Republican and Democrat, coddling large private utilities. All of them received large campaign contributions from the businesses. Newsom's own earnings totaled greater than $10 million over the course of his profession.

That $10 million is a no brainer for PG&E and the others after they can snap their fingers and get sycophantic political tools to get a whole lot of thousands and thousands, often billions, in consumer money. In fact, despite the fact that the utility's customers are paying to run Diablo Canyon, the PUC may soon approve even more cash to the businesses, starting once more with PG&E.

Instead of limiting these firms to applying for a base rate increase every 4 years, they’ll now be asked to pay as repeatedly as they’ll persuade the PUC that they need more cash to create latest power for the electrical vehicles that the state hopes will dominate latest automobile sales within the near future.

All of this implies higher costs for patrons, more inflation, and fewer money in most wallets. That makes now a great time for the PUC to make itself electable and accountable to the thousands and thousands it likes to beg for money.

Send Thomas Elias an email at tdelias@aol.com and browse more of his columns online at californiafocus.net.

MARINA – Joby Aviation recently delivered its third aircraft prototype from its pilot production line in Marina and expects 4 more aircraft to enter energetic flight testing later this yr.

The aerospace company has developed and produced an electrical air taxi able to carrying a pilot and 4 passengers at speeds of as much as 320 km/h, offering high-speed mobility with a fraction of the noise of helicopters and 0 operating emissions.

Joby has been operating in Marina for about seven years and is constructing a producing facility there. The company has begun producing its aircraft there at its pilot production plant, with the primary aircraft set to roll off the road in June 2023. The Marina facility is one among three in California, with others positioned in Santa Cruz – where the corporate is headquartered – and San Carlos. Joby Aviation also has a facility in Munich, and selected Dayton, Ohio, as the placement for its latest manufacturing facility in September last yr.

In March, the corporate announced the acquisition of an existing facility at Dayton International Airport, where it has begun hiring staff to support its initial operations. The facility Joby is acquiring will likely be equipped to support its initial production operations in Dayton, that are expected to start later this yr. The facility will likely be used to fabricate aircraft parts to support Joby's pilot production line in Marina.

The backdrop for the ceremonial laying of the muse stone was the second series prototype aircraft that rolled off the corporate's pilot production line.

Joby's pilot production line in Marina, currently positioned in its “mega tent” at Marina Airport, is specifically designed to assist Joby learn manufacturing and optimize its manufacturing processes to provide larger volumes.

The aerospace company has testing facilities including an integrated test laboratory and flight test facilities at Marina. With the groundbreaking of its latest facility on the airport, Joby will significantly increase the production capability of its pilot production line.

The news of the third production prototype rolling off the pilot production line in Marina got here as the corporate released its second quarter 2024 shareholder letter, highlighting its “strong financial foundation” because it reported a robust balance sheet with $825 million in money and short-term investments at the tip of the second quarter.

Other highlights of the second quarter of 2024 include ramping up production, in line with the corporate, as the corporate expects to have 4 aircraft in energetic flight test within the third quarter of this yr, with the second production prototype currently in flight test and the third just rolled off the production line. Joby's certification process is within the fourth of 5 phases of type certification and is now 37% complete on the corporate side, with quite a few test plans submitted and accepted through the quarter. Joby expects progress within the fourth phase to speed up throughout the rest of 2024.

As a part of its international expansion, Joby has applied for certification in Australia and signed a memorandum of understanding with Mukamalah, an entirely owned subsidiary of Saudo Aramco and operator of the world's largest fleet of business jets, to introduce the Joby aircraft to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through direct sales. Joby's future technologies included the 561-mile flight of a first-of-its-kind hydrogen-powered air taxi demonstrator and the acquisition of the autonomy division of Xwing, an industry leader in the event of autonomous technology for aviation.

Originally published: August 9, 2024 at 6:41 am

CHATFIELD, Minn. — A small crowd has gathered on this caramel-brown tangle of fields that stretch across a small-town community to look at a red Case IH mix drive up the road. An experiment is happening on the sting of the Driftless Area in southeastern Minnesota.

The star of those few acres is winter-planted camelina, the potential wonder plant that might power the engines of the long run and clean waterways within the Midwest's karst hills. But before these sustainable opportunities can flourish, farmers must know whether the sturdy, medium-weight oilseed can actually grow throughout the region's notoriously cold winters and mild springs.

This starts with a field outside of Chatfield.

“Camelina is extremely hardy,” says Anna Teeter, latest oilseed program manager for Minnetonka-based Cargill, the worldwide commodities trader that has worked with farmers to grow camelina on 2,000 acres in Minnesota and North Dakota this yr. “Most farmers never learn how to grow a new crop.”

Like farmers within the fields around Chatfield, they primarily grow corn and soybeans, that are staple crops for animal feed and biofuels and are very profitable. But the double-cropping system has also led to polluted water and greenhouse gas emissions.

As a part of a worldwide effort to construct sustainable agriculture, advocates are pushing for higher crops that keep the bottom covered from November to April, keep groundwater stable, keep carbon out of the atmosphere and store nutrients within the soil.

Farmers said they need markets greater than programs, a refrain that Cargill officials hear loud and clear.

“We're trying to get that third crop into a two-year cycle,” said Lyle DePauw, Cargill's director of crop innovation. “I wouldn't call it commoditized yet.”

Almost 3% of Minnesota's 26 million acres of farmland are planted with environmentally friendly cover crops within the winter. Farmers often complain that it is just too cold within the region. Some also don't like growing something they’ll't bring to market. Many cover crops – akin to hairy vetch – must be removed in the summertime.

Last fall, Cargill launched the pilot project with just a few dozen growers. In February, the commodity giant announced a $2.5 million investment within the University of Minnesota's world-renowned Forever Green Initiative – an incubator for developing future agricultural crops – to develop novel oilseeds.

And on Wednesday, Cargill announced a brand new research partnership with Forever Green, drawing on technical expertise — including a laboratory in Fort Collins — to more quickly develop regenerative crops like camelina.

This is all a part of a fastidiously orchestrated dance to determine a camelina farming system, from producers to processors to buyers.

Mitch Hunter, deputy director of Forever Green, said demand for camelina had surged as industry and governments moved toward more sustainable aviation.

“You can't expand a million acres overnight,” Hunter said. “But our partnership with Cargill allows us to expand pretty damn quickly.”

For greater than a decade, the U.S. Navy has been testing the addition of camelina-derived fuel to fighter jet fuel. Since 2016, Forever Green has been breeding oilseeds—including camelina, a member of the mustard family and native to the Mediterranean—to be used in a relay cropping system with soybeans.

One problem was the scale of the seed. Camelina seeds are much smaller than soybeans. One task for the researchers, Hunter said, will probably be to breed a bigger seed that may be processed using conventional agricultural equipment. For now, a pressing plant in West Fargo will process this summer's harvest.

The farmers who’ve come forward are among the many first to see the high-potential plant growing of their fields. Cargill said it plans to extend the world of ​​camelina planted tenfold. A second round of the pilot project will begin in August for farmers in Minnesota and the Dakotas.

“The reason is water quality,” Novotny said. “We have great water. But it's called 'young water.' When it comes to the surface in 15 years, we could drink it. But in many places it's 30 or 40 years old.”

This yr, Novotny's hilltop fields in Chatfield are certainly one of the testing grounds for camelina. He jumped back into the red mix, drove the vehicle into the sector and lowered the threshing machine.

Soon, Novotny's red mix is rolling easily across the fields like a lawnmower devouring grass, spitting out seeds from the back. Novotny stops the machine and Cargill and Forever Green employees kneel right down to inspect the harvest.

“It doesn’t look so bad,” said Teeter.

From a distance, a mother and three children watch the plants from behind the fence. It is unusual to see a harvest in the course of summer. But the ability might be the long run and protect the water until the youngsters are older.

_____

©2024 StarTribune. Visiting startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

According to the US Attorney's Office, the decision was announced on May eighth.

A federal grand jury indicted Rambler Gallo last June. charges him A single offense involved the transmission of a program, information, code and command to cause damage to a protected computer, prosecutors said. Gallo pleaded guilty to the charge.

Gallo was a full-time worker for a Massachusetts-based company that had hired Discovery Bay to operate the town's water treatment plant, which serves 15,000 residents.

Prosecutors said Gallo installed software on his PC and on the corporate's internal network that gave him distant access to the plant's computer system.

About five weeks after his resignation on Nov. 25, 2020, Gallo accessed the plant's computer system and sent a command to uninstall software that protected the water treatment system, including pressure, filtration and chemical levels, prosecutors said.

Other employees discovered the software was disabled a day after the cyberattack.

Gallo's actions “were well thought out to be as disruptive as possible” and posed “a potential threat to the health and safety of the community's water supply,” prosecutors said.

In addition to the house sentence, U.S. District Court Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. ordered Gallo to serve three years of probation, forfeit his computer and pay $44,250 in restitution.