THEItalian agroecology does not surrender to expensive energy. Search and find new solutions in order not to lose market share due to the soaring prices of raw materials and fertilizers. Between Emilia Romagna and Veneto the first integrated industrial organization of agricultural biomethane, deriving from the use of sugar beet by-products. The project was conceived by Confederation of Beet Growers and Coprob Italiana Sugars. An ambitious plan by two partners that will lead to the construction in just three years of ten plants for the production of agricultural biomethane.
On the border between the two regions, on an area of 30 hectares, today 100% made in Italy sugar is produced. There are 4.500 specialized companies and they already use two by-product transformation plants: in Minerbio (BO) and in Pontelongo (PD). However, the construction of the ten new plants will further characterize the economic value chain of sugar. The processing of the "superfluous" will generate 20 million cubic meters of biomethane per year.
The planned investment is 70 million euros with the Minerbio, Pontelongo and Finale Emilia plants among the first to go into operation, but adapted for biomethane instead of biogas. The operation against the high energy price is of great interest not only for the fluctuations in the price of gas, but because it opens up new avenues for the exploitation of a product such as sugar beet. It certainly proves to be good alternative to gas imports
The beet growers united in consortium companies
“The biomethane produced will cover about half of the fossil methane consumption of the Italian sugar industry, within the two sugar refineries of Minerbio and Pontelongo, equal to over 40 million cubic meters per year, thus helping to reduce CO2 emissions ”, they say in a joint Gabriele Lanfredi e Claudius Gallerani, respectively Presidents of Cgbi and Coprob.
The beet growers have built 23 biogas plants to date and operate over 200 in service. Coprob has the complete management of the sugar chain, consumed in about 2 tons per year and with heavy imports. Now his companies will have to devote themselves to processing waste and zootechnical effluents from biomass farms. A contribution to the Italian ecological transition that the public authorities will be able to evaluate.
The project also aims at creation of consortium companies with capital and workforce of cooperatives and livestock farms in the Veneto or Emilia-Romagna regions. Italian sugar is already produced in a sustainable way, but sling's idea is to make everything even more profitable. A unicum is configured, a beet-sugar supply chain towards the green economy and the circular economy. The strategic references are clearly those of the fight against greenhouse gases and the reduction of energy imports.
With biomethane, digestate is obtained, which farmers know well and which will be used here for fertilizing the land. Land finally treated with natural, non-harmful fertilizers, which will produce other economies of scale in Italian agroecology. In the autonomous fight in the territories against the expensive energy, the growing sector also has the ambition to climb the European rankings.
