Factory & Fields · Industrial and agricultural transformation
How industry and agritech
are changing
Automation, decarbonisation and ecological transition: concrete cases.
What is actually changing, and where
A decommissioned coal port turning into a hub for offshore wind components. A greenhouse drilling its own geothermal well instead of burning gas. A sawmill town running its district heating on its own wood waste. None of that is abstract: it is running right now, on ordinary sites, mostly without much fuss.
Promafor Sovema precision-engineers the well casing that keeps every water and geothermal borehole intact, from its plant in Vauvert. Recoveo keeps 50,000 hard drives in stock in Roanne, ready to bring failed drives back to life for its clients. VD Holland drilled its own geothermal well rather than pay for Russian gas. Every report starts with a case like that: a named company, a named site, what it actually pulled off.
Three series, three kinds of ground
Series
On the Floor
One site, one company, one process, and the people running it. Automation, recycling lines, pilot plants.
Series
In the Field
Farmland and greenhouses fitted with sensors, geothermal heat or agricultural robotics. The same efficiency drive, applied to agriculture.
Series
Places in Transition
Ports, towns and regions reshaped by an industrial or energy transition. The place itself is the story.
Latest reports
Where the Mower Sound Is a Moo: Inside Silicon Ranch’s Christiana Solar Ranch
On a November morning in Christiana, Tennessee, the lawn mowers at a Middle Tennessee solar field make almost no sound at all….
Inside the Tokyo Office Tower That Makes Its Own Hydrogen From Rooftop Sunlight
On the roof of Shinagawa Intercity, a mixed-use office and retail complex a short walk from Shinagawa Station in Tokyo’s Minato ward,…
Why Meta Is Betting on a Low-Carbon Cement Plant in Missouri
In Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, a town of fewer than 5,000 people on the west bank of the Mississippi River, a Mississippi Lime…
Ricoh’s Shibata Plant Is Learning to Print Solar Cells, Not Just Documents
At a site in Shibata, a town in Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture, that Ricoh founded in 1967 as an electric-calculator plant called Tohoku…
Nordhavn’s FlexHeat: How a Heat Pump Learned to Answer Copenhagen’s Grid in 90 Seconds
A cruise-ship terminal on Copenhagen’s outer waterfront draws its heating and hot water from a pump a few piers away. That pump…
Inside the French Data Recovery Lab That Keeps 50,000 Hard Drives on Hand for Spare Parts
Inside the Vauvert Plant That Turns PVC Casing Into Water and Geothermal Wells
Sims Lifecycle in Tennessee: the 200,000-Square-Foot Plant That Turns Dead Electronics Into Raw Material
Inside the Clean Room Where Verkor Perfects EV Batteries Before Scaling Them to a Gigafactory
The Shrimp Farm That Waters Its Own Greenhouse: Inside Agriloops’ First Saltwater Aquaponics Plant
Four Liters of Water, One Kilogram of Tomatoes: Inside a Dutch Greenhouse Pollinated by 800 Bees
VD Holland: Why a Dutch Pepper Grower Drilled for Geothermal Heat Instead of Burning Gas
Your story
A change that deserves a report.
A boiler replaced by waste heat is exactly the kind of case this site runs. If something like that happened where you work, we would like to hear about it. No press office needed, no formal program: a few lines are enough to start.
Partners
Drilling a well?
Promafor Sovema, manufacturer and distributor of drilling solutions
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Factory & Fields collects accounts from companies and places changing the way they produce and live.