Energy: The Pipe Between Two Worlds

Forty kilometres separate two of the strangest neighbours in the Dutch economy. In the port of Rotterdam, a refinery makes hydrogen, and the process leaves behind a stream of almost pure CO2: an emission, a cost, a problem. Near Amsterdam and in the Westland, thousands of greenhouses grow tomatoes and peppers, and tomatoes grow faster in air enriched with CO2, so much faster that growers used to run their gas burners in high summer, heat nobody needed and all, purely to make the gas the refinery was throwing away.

One silo paying to get rid of the exact molecule the other silo was paying to produce. Forty kilometres apart. For years.