Environment

Transatlantic graduates tackle Scotland’s net zero goals

Three American graduates have collectively put more than 10,000 miles between themselves and their hometowns to work at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC).

Kaia Waxenberg, Brady Stevens and Alexa Green have gone from studying for an MSc in Environmental Protection and Management at SRUC to working within the organisation.

Despite growing up in New York City with no connections to farming, Kaia is assisting with agricultural greenhouse gas emissions research at SAC Consulting, focusing on the scientific development of the Agrecalc carbon footprinting tool.

Brady, from Buffalo in New York State, is also working at SAC Consulting as a Rural Business and Economics Consultantand Alex, from Miami, is a Research Assistant at the Rural Policy Centre.

Kaia said: “I’m from New York City, so you can probably imagine my early encounters with farming were pretty limited. I originally became interested in issues of conservation and sustainability as a teenager, working in volunteer and internship roles throughout Manhattan.

“I then moved to the UK to pursue an undergraduate degree in conservation but ended up specialising in plant sciences after becoming increasingly interested in food sustainability.

“My new role is a great opportunity to apply my modelling and data analysis skills to practical farm management and consulting. I’m so excited to help deliver evidence-based mitigation solutions to farmers across the UK.”

Living across the road from his uncle’s 2000-cow dairy farm, Brady grew up with a knowledge of the agricultural industry. He fell in love with Scotland after cycling across the Highlands during his teaching fellowship in London and applied to do a Masters degree at SRUC.

“I was drawn to the practicality of the degrees offered and the opportunity to get out in the field and be close to agriculture,” he said. “I was also inspired by the research/ education/consulting model - the win-win-wins made sense to me.”

“The time is flying as the work is varied and engaging. I am loving it.”

Brady, Alexa and Kaia have gone from studying at SRUC to working in the organisation

Growing up in Miami, Alexa developed an appreciation for the environment and particularly marine and peatland areas such as mangroves and wetlands.

After studying Psychology and Sustainability Studies, she worked for a non-profit organisation focusing on improving recycling systems through behaviour change.

As a research assistant with the Rural Policy Centre, Alexa works on a variety of research and knowledge exchange opportunities

“I chose the Masters programme at SRUC because I wanted to obtain a more concrete understanding of climate science and policy and improve my research and analysis skills,” she said.

“I am excited to continue to develop my skills and work with the amazing team at SRUC to inform wider policy and help Scotland reach net zero by 2045.”

Locogen and Logan Energy awarded £3 million Green Distilleries funding to progress Arbikie hydrogen power plan

The Arbikie Highland Estate Distillery near Montrose is one step closer to becoming net zero thanks to £3 million of government funding granted to UK renewables company Locogen in partnership with hydrogen technologies specialist Logan Energy.

The Phase 2 funding comes from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy’s (BEIS) Net Zero Innovation Portfolio through its Green Distilleries Competition. This will see the duo work with Arbikie to install an onsite wind

turbine and electrolyser that will generate green hydrogen - replacing the polluting oil currently used by the distillery to raise steam for the distillation process.

The Green Distilleries Competition aims to help distilleries cut CO2 emissions by one million tonnes, contributing to Scotland’s and the UK’s national target to be carbon neutral by 2045 and 2050 respectively, with each distillery deploying innovative green solutions in order to achieve these ambitious goals.

Burning hydrogen does not release any carbon emissions and therefore the Arbikie project represents a clean fuel alternative to current practices. The project will showcase the technical feasibility of using hydrogen as an alternative fuel in distillation and other process heat applications and will have enormous replicability across industry whilst acting as a catalyst for creating green hydrogen opportunities in the wider Angus area.

Andy Lyle, CEO of Locogen, said: “This is a fantastic result for Arbikie and presents a great opportunity to demonstrate how distilleries, and the wider process industries, can use new technologies to create cleaner, sustainable businesses.”

The Arbikie project will comprise a single 1MW wind turbine on Arbikie’s farmland, which will export the electricity generated to a green hydrogen hub via a dedicated private wire. The green hydrogen hub will be based at Arbikie Distillery and comprise an electrolyser, compressor and storage.

Green hydrogen will be created by the electrolyser and a direct pipe will take the stored hydrogen from the storage vessel to the existing plant room. A burner and boiler compatible with burning hydrogen will then be used to create steam which will deliver the heat for distillation.

This will replace gas oil that is currently used to raise steam at the distillery.