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TL Tracey Lefroy On Agtech - So What?

“What's Australia's sovereign capacity in terms of fertilizer production? Sixty percent of the cost of producing nitrogen is in the energy. So if we're going to be this renewable energy superpower, both in Australia and specifically in the west, how do we utilize that competitive advantage to produce our nitrogen on Australian land?”

Agtech - So What? · Alternative Proteins · November 2026

“What's Australia's sovereign capacity in terms of fertilizer production? Sixty percent of the cost of producing nitrogen is in the energy. So if we're going to be this renewable energy superpower, both in Australia and specifically in the west, how do we utilize that competitive advantage to produce our nitrogen on Australian land?” — Tracey Lefroy, Agtech - So What?

Context

After listing the risks of hosting energy projects, she turns to an opportunity: cheap local renewable power could underpin domestic fertiliser production.

Transcript

Agtech - So What? Around 20:57 into the episode
Tracey Lefroy

…a red flag because why do I need to keep this a secret obviously there are elements that are commercial incompetence and certainly our landowner collective has been really aware of the commerciality of what we're doing but within the 10 of us we are really comfortable to share that information

Sarah Nolet

interesting let's talk about that commerciality a little bit tell me about some of the risks you were managing for and the benefits that you see from an economic perspective and maybe otherwise

Tracey Lefroy

yeah okay look there's a lot of risks and they can be risks from concern around water runoff around lay down pads through to concerns around decommissioning in 35 years so that's where it becomes really difficult because it's kind of like that being in the shearing shed and trying to think of a 35-year business deal at the same time the risks go from very operational very production focused very land-based issues all the way through to so in 35 years if the next owner is here or my children or my children's children are farming is what's the end of life of this project look like what's my decommissioning security how do i ensure that i know that i'm not actually setting up for a horrible mess at the end of 35 years so that that's and that's the landowners that i'm working with at the minute who are just so wonderful to work with so i'm doing a separate project altogether as an independent consultant and they're the very questions that they are asking you know they're saying what happens if in 15 years even the project goes broke who is then responsible for the decommissioning cost what happens if because i've got a…

Sarah Nolet

fascinating and i should say that you mentioned being an independent consultant so you've been through and are going through this in your own farm with the landowner collective but then because of this experience you've also been asked to help others it's great because your experience ranges across…

Tracey Lefroy

first off you have what they call an exclusivity agreement whereby you agree to exclude only have a conversation with this one proponent. So dating your friend and that's normally about five years. Then next you move into your option to lease and then a lease agreement. Six or seven megawatts seems…

Sarah Nolet

For anyone not familiar. So nameplate

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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