Dutch Flower Growers Get Greener
by Bonnie Alter, London 
on 06.16.06
Dutch flower growers are feeling the pain of rising energy prices as the bills grow for heating their greenhouses. In response they are starting an experiment to make the industry greener by operating greenhouses which could produce energy. The government is now sponsoring trials of new greenhouses where surplus heat generated over the summer will be conserved for the winter or transformed into electricity. If successful, the next step would be to link the greenhouses to Holland’s electricity network. This would absorb the power generated in the summer months and allow the greenhouses to feed back off the network in the winter. Then Holland’s flower industry would be able to generate more electricity than it uses. The greenhouse scheme is part of a wider drive by the flower industry to cut its surging electricity and gas bills by a quarter. Flower growers are also starting to experiment with the use of biofuels to heat the greenhouses instead of natural gas. Since the Netherlands is such a huge centre for flower export, this could be a big bonus in the fight against global warming. It is worth noting that there is one organic flower wholesaler in Holland--Florganic. Their organic flowers and plants are grown by using as many natural factors during the growing process as possible. :: The Times
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The other side of this story is that natural gas is also used by the Dutch greenhouses to provide CO2 for enhanced growth. The plants grow much better, but it's wasteful especially in the summer as you still get heat generated.
To get around this, a company in the Port of Rotterdam has created a business that ships very pure CO2 through a pipeline from a Shell refinery to a large number of greenhouses in the area (see http://www.ocap.nl/OCAP_UK.pdf).
Through this service they claim that greenhouses save over 95 million cubic meters of natural gas, and CO2 emissions are reduced by over 170,000 tonnes per year.
they dont mention how they are going to make electricity out of the heat of the summer greenhouses.
I think this should be promoted through various country. I cant wait to hear the reaction of my Poulsbo florist.