SAN DIEGO and LA JOLLA, Calif., Nov.
9, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE)
and the Salk Institute today announced a new project to advance
plant-based carbon capture and sequestration research, education
and implementation to help address the climate crisis. Sempra
Energy is donating $2 million to the
Salk Institute to help fund the five-year project.
"There is incredible urgency to address our changing climate,"
said Salk Professor Wolfgang Busch,
co-director of the Institute's Harnessing Plants Initiative (HPI).
"As the world's population increases to 10 billion or more, global
warming is going to put incredible pressure on our ability to meet
humanity's needs for food, fuel and fiber. Sempra's investment in
research to develop solutions that remove excess carbon from the
atmosphere is an investment in our shared future."
"At Sempra Energy, we support partnerships designed to produce
sustainable and responsible change, and we believe the Salk
Institute is an ideal partner to make true progress in the fight
against climate change," said Kevin
Sagara, group president of Sempra Energy and advisory
committee member of HPI. "This project has the potential to help
remove significant amounts of carbon from entering our atmosphere
and aligns with Sempra Energy's portfolio to advance the global
energy transition to lower-carbon energy sources."
Sempra Energy will be the lead sponsor of the Salk Institute's
"Sequestering Carbon Through Climate Adapted Sorghum" project, part
of the Institute's Harnessing Plants Initiative. HPI is an
innovative, scalable and bold approach to fight climate change by
optimizing a plant's natural ability to capture and store carbon
and adapt to diverse climate conditions. Salk researchers aim to
develop these Salk Ideal Plants™ to mitigate the disastrous effects
of climate change by drawing down significant amounts of the excess
carbon in our atmosphere while also providing more food, fuel and
fiber for a growing population. With Sempra Energy's funding, over
the next five years Salk scientists will work to develop a
drought-tolerant, carbon-sequestering grass (sorghum) variety
designed to grow on land in Southern
California and store carbon in the soil for use with grain
production, grazing or bio-energy feed stocks.
HPI aims to develop crop plants that have significant global
acreages to store long-lasting carbon in the soil. Crop plants that
are engineered to store more carbon in the soil for longer can lead
to a potentially enormous reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide
(CO2). The six crops that HPI is developing (including sorghum) can
have a global impact on carbon levels. HPI estimates that if,
worldwide, 70% of the target crops are converted into
carbon-sequestration-enhanced crop plants, 1.5 to 6 gigatons of CO2
can be sequestered per year, the equivalent of up to as much as
one-third of human-caused CO2 emissions that accumulate in the
atmosphere each year.
Salk Professor Joanne Chory,
co-director of the Harnessing Plants Initiative, said, "Our
plant-based approach to climate change offers a win-win-win for
improving soil health, feeding the world's burgeoning population
and sequestering carbon affordably with the potential for global
scale. Salk's plant scientists are very excited at how much Sempra
Energy's generosity will help move our critical research
forward."
About Sempra Energy
Sempra Energy's mission is to be
North America's premier energy
infrastructure company. With more than $60
billion in total assets at the end of 2019, the San Diego-based company is the utility holding
company with the largest U.S. customer base. The Sempra Energy
companies' more than 18,000 employees deliver energy with purpose
to over 35 million consumers. The company is focused on the most
attractive markets in North
America, including California, Texas, Mexico
and the LNG export market. Sempra Energy has been consistently
recognized for its leadership in sustainability, and diversity and
inclusion, and is a member of the S&P 500 Utilities Index and
the Dow Jones Utility Index. The company was also named one of the
"World's Most Admired Companies" for 2020 by Fortune Magazine.
About the Salk Institute
Every cure has a starting
point. The Salk Institute embodies Jonas
Salk's mission to dare to make dreams into reality. Its
internationally renowned and award-winning scientists explore the
very foundations of life, seeking new understandings in
neuroscience, genetics, immunology, plant biology and more. The
Institute is an independent nonprofit organization and
architectural landmark: small by choice, intimate by nature and
fearless in the face of any challenge. Be it cancer or Alzheimer's,
aging or diabetes, Salk is where cures begin. Learn more at:
salk.edu.
View original content to download
multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sempra-energy-and-salk-institute-announce-project-to-advance-plant-based-carbon-capture-and-storage-research-301168112.html
SOURCE Sempra Energy