About this episode

Nico Pinkowski discusses the challenges of scaling low-carbon fertilizer production and the urgent need to decarbonize the industry.

Nitrogen fertilizer is essential for global food security, yet its production is a hyper-centralized, fossil-fuel-intensive process that accounts for 5 to 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. As geopolitical instability threatens traditional supply chains, the vulnerability of this industry has never been clearer. Nico Pinkowski, CEO and co-founder of Nitricity, initially set out to decentralize fertilizer production with compact devices that farmers could use right on their fields. But market realities demanded a pivot. Today, Nitricity is producing liquid organic fertilizer from recycled almond shells at a centralized facility in California. In this episode, host Lara Pierpoint talks with Nico about the "brutal reality" of scaling a new solution for a mature industry, the intricacies of financing a first-of-a-kind commercial plant, and why their mission to decarbonize a critical global commodity is more urgent than ever. Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced and edited by Ross Kenyon, Anne Bailey, and Stephen Lacey. Sean Marquand is our technical director. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis…

People in this episode

Host: Lara Pierpoint

Guest: Nico Pinkowski

Topics covered

• low-carbon fertilizer
• food security
• decentralization
• greenhouse gas emissions
• supply chains
• commercial plant financing

Keywords

• nitrogen fertilizer
• greenhouse gas emissions
• decentralized production
• organic fertilizer
• almond shells
• commercial plant

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Nitricity, Latitude Media, Trellis Climate

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