Loana Defaveri, technical manager of Cetric, is photographed at the bioenergy ecopark in Chapecó in southwestern Brazil. The aerial photo in the background shows the various components of the complex, which receives industrial waste and produces biogas, electricity, biomethane and other by-products. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

By Mario Osava
CHAPECÓ, Brazil , Apr 29 2024 (IPS)

Biogas sounds like redemption, the conversion of the sinner. Its production involves extracting energy from filth, from the most disgusting environmental pollution, and at the same time avoiding the worsening of the global climate crisis.

The Industrial and Commercial Solid Waste Treatment Center (Cetric) is dedicated to extracting biogas from the waste that abounds in the municipality where it is based, Chapecó, in southern Brazil. “Making use of industrial waste is an important and innovative niche in Brazil, opening up new paths for the emerging biogas market.” -- Heleno Quevedo

With a population of 255,000 and numerous meat processing plants, Chapecó is a main hub in the western part of the state of Santa Catarina, the largest national producer and exporter of pork and also a major poultry producer.

For this reason, biogas production is proliferating in the region, using manure from pig farms, partly due to pressure from environmental authorities to prevent animal waste from continuing to contaminate rivers and soil to the detriment of the environment and human health.

On Apr. 3, the Federation of Santa Catarina Industries launched the Decarbonization Hub program, with the goal of treating 100 percent of swine manure in the next 10 years, among other challenges to meet the agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It does not seem feasible, but it points in the right direction.

The Cetric group of companies was founded in 2001 with a specific mission: to take care of waste from nearby agribusiness and other smaller sources, from its evaluation and collection to its transportation, processing and disposal.

It then expanded nationally. Today it is active in 12 of Brazil’s 26 states, with four Bioenergy Ecoparks, including the first one in Chapecó, 17 transshipment units with warehouses and 19 emergency teams at strategic points.

“Making use of industrial waste is an important and innovative niche in Brazil, opening up new paths for the emerging biogas market,” said Heleno Quevedo, an energy engineer and creator of the news portal Energía e Biogás, in a telephone interview with IPS from Santo André, a city neighboring São Paulo, also in the south.

The photo shows a truck running 100 percent on biomethane and, in the background, the industrial waste landfill in Chapecó, in southwestern Brazil. The company Cetric acquired another 28 trucks that will use fuel from its own production. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

Industrial waste as a business

Cetric’s business is the management of waste wherever it is, not just landfills, chemical engineer Loana Defaveri, the company’s technical manager, told IPS. Guidance on the handling of this material in industries is part of their activity.

The company also acts in emergencies, such as accidents with dangerous loads on highways, cities or production sites. It is a kind of firefighter in these cases and deploys specialized personnel with the necessary tools and vehicles for prompt assistance, dispersed throughout 19 locations in the country.

In mid-April, a team dealt with a spill of propionic acid, used to preserve food, when a truck overturned in Paraná, a neighboring state. The most frequent are accidents involving trucks carrying fuel such as ethanol and diesel, Defaveri said at the company’s facilities.

The CSTR reactor is more productive than covered lagoon biodigesters because temperature, acidity and other indicators of the substrate that generates biogas are controlled. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

A Command Center, a rotating team of four people, monitors by video the fleet of more than 200 Cetric trucks 24 hours a day from the company’s headquarters and the emergencies addressed.

But the ecopark in Chapecó is the heart, the center of innovations and the circular economy of the Cetric Group, which is involved in a range of activities.

Bioenergy production began in 2005, but was suspended due to the scarcity and low durability of biogas equipment. It resumed 15 years later and now has five covered lagoon biodigesters and a continuous stirred tank reactor, known as CSTR.

Only organic material is used for this purpose. The waste collected by the company is class 1, hazardous waste, generally chemical, and class 2, which includes inert waste such as iron scrap or concrete, and waste that degrades, such as organic waste, which is the bioenergy part.

Four generators produce one megawatt of electricity with the biogas produced at Cetric’s own ecopark. This power supplies the consumption of the Brazilian company’s industrial solid waste treatment complex. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

Biogas from landfills and biodigesters

From the large landfill covered with impermeable black tarpaulin, which accumulates most of the garbage, biogas is extracted that only serves to generate heat, because it contains little methane, Defaveri explained. Burning this biogas reduced 80 percent of the firewood previously consumed in the ecopark.

For electricity generation and the refining that converts it into biomethane, the biogas that comes out of the biodigesters, which has 71 percent methane, and the reactor, with 73 percent, is used, she said.

In this energy sector, four biogas generators produce one megawatt of power, electricity estimated to be sufficient for the company’s consumption.

Another part of the biogas is refined by membranes, activated carbon and other processes to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulfuric acid (H2S) to obtain biomethane, which is the fuel used by a 100 percent gas truck and 15 other hybrid trucks that consume gas and diesel.

Another 28 trucks recently acquired in Chapecó will also use 100 percent biomethane or natural gas as fuel, as the two gases are equivalent.

A truck stores biomethane in yellow cylinders, ready to supply trucks transporting industrial waste being treated at the Cetric Ecopark in Chapecó, a municipality in southern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

Productivity still low

But production is still not very efficient, despite the progress represented by the CSTR reactor. “We only produce 10 percent of our biogas potential, but we are increasing productivity with technological advances, new investments and personnel training,” Defaveri noted.

Cetric Chapecó currently produces 250 cubic meters of methane per hour and intends to reach 1,500 cubic meters per hour, i.e. six times the volume, which requires heavy investment and also depends on the substrate, as they call the input, she said.

The effluent resulting from this process undergoes a complex treatment, which includes waste separation, sand filters, membranes, electrolysis and even a reverse osmosis device.

This makes it possible to obtain water of sufficient quality for reuse in washing vehicles and other equipment, chemical engineer Diego Molinet told IPS. The solid part goes to composting for processing that can result in biofertilizer.

The effluent cannot be used as fertilizer, a common practice among small biogas producers such as pig farmers, because it can saturate the soil, with an excess of some components, such as phosphorous, said Molinet.

Diego Molinet, a chemical engineer at Cetric, holds in his hands the result of the treatment of effluents from the industrial waste treatment process, with production of biogas and biomethane: a glass with clean water for non-potable reuse and another glass with solid material that can be converted into fertilizer after composting. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

Effluent treatment also produces ARLA 32, a pure urea compound that is mandatory in heavy vehicle exhaust to reduce the emission of pollutant gases, such as nitrogen oxide. It is of growing use in the automotive industry.

“Cetric enjoys a good reputation” and plays an important role in Chapecó by preventing the city from having to send its industrial waste to other municipalities, Marck Gehlen, the city government director of the environment, told IPS.

Its emergency service has already controlled several accidents in the city. One was a fire at a fuel distribution company, whose rapid control prevented contamination of water courses and risks to the population, said Gehlen, an environmental engineer who has worked in the sector for more than 10 years, three years as director.

One concern is the sometimes dangerous truckloads of industrial waste that crisscross the city, he admitted.

With four meatpacking plants on the periphery of the city, Chapecó has had some problems, such as the stench emitted by the plants, although that was brought under control years ago. In general, the companies have adopted measures to avoid environmental damage and one of them has already transferred potentially polluting activities away from the city.

A pickup truck is fueled with biomethane at a pump in the Franca Wastewater Treatment Plant, in the southeastern Brazilian state of São Paulo. Some 40 vehicles are run on biofuel produced from wastewater treatment. The resulting sludge goes through a biodigestion process, which extracts biogas, which is then refined as biomethane. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

By Mario Osava
FRANCA, Brazil, Jul 21 2023 (IPS)

The city of Franca is an example of basic sanitation in Brazil. In addition to providing universal treated water and sewage to its 352,500 inhabitants, it extracts biogas from wastewater and refines it to fuel its own vehicles.

Biomethane, the final product also called renewable natural gas, replaces fossil fuels and is used in 40 vehicles of the state-owned company Saneamiento Básico do Estado de São Paulo (SABESP) in Franca, in the northeast of the state of São Paulo."We are a laboratory, a pilot project, which SABESP will replicate in other facilities when the economic and technical feasibility has been proven and the qualification and regulation of biomethane is in place." -- Alex Veronez

SABESP Franca has been producing biogas at its main wastewater treatment plant (ETE) since its inauguration in 1998, but for 20 years it flared the gas in order to avoid pollution. In 2018 it switched to purifying it to initially supply 19 vehicles.

The city became a symbol of good sanitation practices when it reached first place in the ranking of the 100 largest Brazilian municipalities by the non-governmental Instituto Trata Brasil, which monitors the sector and promotes awareness of it.

From 2015 to 2020 Franca remained in the lead, but fell to ninth place in 2023, in the report released in March. Reduced investment, relative to income, was one of the factors leading to the decline. But the city continued to score top marks in nine of the 12 categories evaluated.

The main reason for the decline, according to the institute’s executive president, Luana Pretto, was the rate of water loss in distribution: 28.89 percent. The target is 25 percent. This item is also measured by the losses in each connection, in which the city is doing well, but the evaluation takes into account both indicators.

“The competition is fierce among the top positions,” Pretto told IPS from nearby São Paulo. “The top-ranked improve even more, while those at the bottom get worse. The best ones, with sound systems in place, have more capacity to invest in expansions and improvements. At the bottom, many new investments are required.”

Alex Veronez, district manager of the São Paulo State Basic Sanitation company, is interviewed in his office in the city of Franca in southeastern Brazil. The production of biomethane from sewage here is a “laboratory” to be replicated after proving its economic and technical feasibility, in addition to producing improvements such as drying the sludge to convert it into biofertilizer. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

Biogas complements sanitation

Extracting biogas from wastewater and using biomethane, in which SABESP Franca is a pioneer in Brazil and Latin America, would improve the ranking, since it complements sanitation, she acknowledged. But it is not included in the assessment.

Franca is the only one of Brazil’s 5,575 municipalities that produces biomethane from wastewater, even in the SABESP system, which is responsible for the basic sanitation of 375 municipalities in the southeastern state of São Paulo, with a total of 28 million inhabitants.

“We are a laboratory, a pilot project, which SABESP will replicate in other facilities when the economic and technical feasibility has been proven and the qualification and regulation of biomethane is in place,” explained Alex Veronez, district manager of SABESP in Franca, which is responsible for operations in 16 municipalities.

The biomethane plant was inaugurated in 2018, thanks to a partnership with the German Fraunhofer institute, which provided the refining and storage equipment, while SABESP carried out the necessary works and the adaptation of its vehicles to biofuel.

Investments totaled seven million reais (1.5 million dollars at the current exchange rate) and a return on the investment is expected in seven years.

A decanting pond is the first step in the treatment of wastewater that then goes through other processes until it is sufficiently clean to be returned to the river, at the Wastewater Treatment Plant in Franca, a city in southeastern Brazil. This leaves sludge that goes to the biodigesters where biogas is produced. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

The benefit is primarily environmental. The International Center for Renewable Energy-Biogas (CIBiogás) estimates that biomethane reduces gasoline pollution by 90 percent.

Its production is only the final part of the 550 liters per second wastewater treatment plant, about 85 percent of Franca’s total. It comprises several processes and numerous ponds, for decanting and oxygenation that increase the reproduction of the microorganisms necessary for biogas production in three large biodigesters

Regulations needed for biofertilizer

The sludge that goes through the biodigestion process that extracts gases from it can be converted into fertilizer. As such it was distributed to farmers during the 13 initial years of the ETE, until new regulations on fertilizers by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock prevented it from being used.

Since then, the sludge has been discarded in the city’s sanitary landfill, a waste that also has costs for transporting a material that is heavy due to its 80 percent moisture. Composting treatment to eliminate impurities such as fecal coliforms could enable it to be used as biofertilizer, but it became unfeasible due to the cost.

“We spend a lot to carry water to the landfill,” lamented Veronez in a conversation with IPS in his office at SABESP in this southern city.

In order to save money and create better conditions for converting sludge into fertilizer, SABESP Franca is implementing a new drying system, which has been purchased and is being installed, as well as renovating a greenhouse to dry the sludge using solar thermal energy.

The Franca Wastewater Treatment Plant in southeastern Brazil has three large biodigesters that extract biogas from sludge, where the microorganisms that perform biodigestion reproduce, in a process that eventually gives rise to biomethane. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

“This will allow us to dry 90 tons of sludge per day,” the manager said. It will save on transportation costs and represents a step forward towards the regulation and development of compost, an additional product that would be added to biomethane in the use of organic waste.

For now, only light SABESP vehicles use biomethane. Successful tests were carried out on a bus from the Swedish company Scania. Sweden is a country that uses biofuel extensively in its heavy vehicles.

But the sanitation company does not plan to sell biomethane, which it produces for its own use. SABESP has many vehicles and a level of energy consumption that will demand all the biogas and biomethane it produces in the long term, said Veronez, a construction engineer.

There are many challenges standing in the way of fully taking advantage of urban sewage gases, including the organization of the market and regulation of the activity, which is a recent development in Brazil, unlike in Europe.

The biggest progress in producing biogas is in landfills, especially for electricity generation. In a few cases it is converted into biomethane.

The energy potential of sanitation

In Brazil, only about two percent of the potential for biogas is being tapped, the Brazilian Biogas Association (Abiogás) estimates. The main sources are agricultural waste, led by sugar cane residue and animal excrement, landfills and urban wastewater.

Part of the equipment at Franca’s Wastewater Treatment Plant, for processing the biogas that generates biomethane, described as renewable natural gas, which is already replacing fossil fuels in 40 of the company’s vehicles on an experimental basis. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

But the potential of basic sanitation, limited in relation to agriculture and landfills, would increase if the goal of universalizing its services by 2033, set by the regulatory framework for the sector passed by Congress in 2020, is met.

In Brazil, 44.2 percent of the population of 203 million people still has no sewerage service. The goal set by the Sanitation Framework approved by Congress in 2020 is for at least 90 percent of the population to have access to wastewater treatment by 2033.

The goal of universalization of treated wastewater is more feasible because it already stands at more than 85 percent of the total. The problem is droughts, which have become more frequent as a result of climate change.

“Franca was caught off guard by the 2014 drought, a novel experience because we did not know the limits of our water sources, the measurements were insufficient,” Veronez acknowledged.

Water security improved with the June 2022 inauguration of a new water treatment plant that takes water from the Sapucaí-Mirim River, the largest in the region. Until now, the local water supply depended basically on the smaller Canoas River, which cuts across the municipality.

The new catchment will serve 30 percent of the population, but it will be connected to the old system so that it can compensate for eventual reductions in flow from other sources, explained the manager of SABESP Franca.

The Toledo Bioenergy Center, in southern Brazil, is under construction, but its biodigesters are already operating with manure and the carcasses of disease-free dead animals from 16 pig farms. The goal is to generate one megawatt of power and for pig farmers to participate in the production of biogas without having to invest in their own plants, so their waste is biodigested and turned into fertilizer, instead of polluting rivers and the soil. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
TOLEDO, Brazil , May 8 2023 (IPS)

It is the “best energy,” according to its producers, but biogas from livestock waste still lacks an organized market that would allow it to take off and realize its potential in Brazil, the world’s largest meat exporter.

“There is a lack of steady consumers,” said Cícero Bley Junior, who has been a pioneer in the promotion of biogas in the west of the southern state of Paraná, since he served as superintendent of Renewable Energies at Itaipu Binacional (2004-2016).

Itaipu, a gigantic hydroelectric plant shared by Brazil and Paraguay on the Paraná River which forms part of the border between the two countries, encourages nearby pig farmers to take advantage of manure to produce biogas, avoiding its disposal in the rivers that flow into the reservoir, whose contamination affects electricity generation in the long run.“The animal protein chain must also see itself as a generator of energy, just as the sugarcane sector defines itself as a sugar and energy industry since it began producing ethanol (a biogas) almost 50 years ago.” -- Cícero Bley

The companies that form part of the animal protein chain, in general the meat industry that purchases animals ready for slaughter and offers breeding sows and technical assistance to livestock producers, should also buy biogas and its biomethane derivative from the breeders, Bley said.

“The animal protein chain must also see itself as a generator of energy, just as the sugarcane sector defines itself as a sugar and energy industry since it began producing ethanol (a biogas) almost 50 years ago,” he told IPS.

But the companies do not do so: none of them are affiliated with the Brazilian Biogas Association (Abiogás), he lamented. The dairy industry could greatly reduce the cost of picking up milk from farms if it replaced diesel with biomethane in its trucks, he said, to illustrate.

If no such decision is taken, there will be no large investments in gas-fired engines either, which can use natural gas or biomethane, also called renewable natural gas.

In addition to the environmental benefits, such as the reduction in water pollution and the decarbonization of energy, biogas offers economic advantages by making use of manure that was previously considered waste and converting it into biofertilizer.

It also drives a new equipment industry and local development by decentralizing energy and fertilizer production.

“It’s the best energy, for sure,” said Anelio Thomazzoni, a pig farmer from Vargeão, a small municipality of 3,500 inhabitants in the west of the state of Santa Catarina in southern Brazil. His farm has a 600-kilowatt biogas power plant and a 1-megawatt solar power plant.

“The correct use of crop waste, as fertilizer after biodigestion, made it possible for me to reduce by 100 percent the purchase of potassium chloride and phosphorus,” formerly essential fertilizers, he told IPS by phone from his town.

A visitor in Toledo examines the external controls of the mixer, an essential piece of equipment in the production of biogas and whose absence or mishandling can affect the operation. The complexity of biodigestion, compared to photovoltaic solar energy, is a factor that is slowing down the expected progress of biogas in Brazil, despite its multiple benefits in energy, environmental and economic terms. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Frustrated potential

Brazil today produces only 0.5 percent of the biogas that could result from agricultural, livestock and industrial waste, urban garbage and sewage, estimated Bley, who founded the International Center for Renewable Energies-Biogás (CIBiogás) in 2013.

Brazil would have the potential to replace 70 percent of the diesel it consumes if it allocated all the biogas to the production of biomethane, according to Abiogás. In terms of electricity, it could reach almost 40 percent, but today it is limited to 353 megawatts – around 0.0018 percent of the total – according to the government’s National Electric Power Agency.

In global terms, Brazil is only ninth in biogas electricity generation, accounting for 2.1 percent of the global total, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

The sugarcane sector joined the effort five years ago in promoting biogas, with larger plants for power generation or biomethane refining in the southern state of São Paulo. New initiatives are attempting to accelerate the development of this energy market in the southern region of Brazil, which concentrates two-thirds of the national production of pork.

Residues from the production of sugar and ethanol from cane represent 48 percent of Brazil’s biogas potential, followed by the animal protein chain, which accounts for 32.2 percent, estimates Abiogás. The rest comes from agricultural waste and sewage.

This large pre-treatment tank uses pig carcasses, an abundant material that is still little employed in the production of biogas, which the Toledo Bioenergy Plant in southern Brazil will process to reach a generation capacity of one megawatt, playing a sanitary role at the same time. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Innovative initiatives

The Bioenergy Plant under construction by CIBiogás, a nonprofit technology and innovation institution in Toledo, a city of 156,000 people in western Paraná, seeks to “validate a possible business model,” explained Juliana Somer, a construction engineer who is operations manager at the Center.

Pig farmers provide the “substrate” and receive back a part of the “digestate”, as the manure converted into a better fertilizer is called, without the gases that make up the biogas, extracted in the biodigestion process. With that they fertilize their land.

To generate electricity, biogas must have at least 55 percent methane. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is another component, making up about 40 percent. Hydrogen sulfide must be removed to prevent corrosion of the equipment.

“The objectives are environmental, social, energy-related and the dissemination of technologies,” said Rafael Niclevicz, environmental engineer at CIBiogás. To that end, an area of ​​high pig farm density was chosen, with about 120,000 hogs in five square kilometers.

The manure is collected daily, 70 percent by trucks and the pig farmers themselves, and the rest by pipelines from the nearest farms. Currently, 16 pig farmers, whose herds total about 40,000 animals, supply the plant, which also collects carcasses of disease-free dead pigs.

“The model makes sense for pig farmers who do not want to invest in facilities to produce biogas on their own. It solves the problem of waste disposal and there are socio-environmental benefits for everyone,” said Somer.

This Enerdimbo truck is powered by biomethane and is used to collect manure from 40 pig producers that feeds the company’s large biodigesters in southern Brazil. Solar power is added to biogas to provide 2.5 megawatts of energy, enough to supply 5,000 medium-sized households. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

The plant is a joint project between the municipal government, which ceded the land, and Itaipu Binacional, which provided funding. The goal is an installed capacity of one megawatt.

In Ouro Verde, 22 kilometers from Toledo, a similar plant, Enerdinbo, receives the “substrate” from 40 farms within a radius of 15 kilometers, where more than 100,000 pigs are raised, for a total generation capacity of two megawatts, to which are added 500 kilowatts from a solar plant.

It is enough to provide electricity to 5,000 households, estimates EDB Energía do Brasil, the company that offers businesses and residential consumers the possibility of reducing their electricity bills by 10 percent by joining the cooperative that benefits from the electricity generated by Enerdinbo.

The business of EDB, created by businesspeople in Cascavel, 60 kilometers from Ouro Verde, is to implement small renewable energy plants to distribute the benefits of distributed generation among members of the cooperative, with the investment by the consumers themselves to save on energy costs.

Enerdinbo and the Toledo Bioenergy Plant seek to expand biogas by avoiding the difficulty for pig farmers and other small farmers or ranchers to invest in the energy business.

A view of one of the three large biodigesters of Enerdimbo, a plant of the EDB Energía do Brasil company that distributes the benefits of distributed electricity generation to numerous members of the cooperative, whose power bills are thus reduced by 10 percent. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Demand from animal protein producers

“Small and medium-sized rural producers are true heroes who face various risks when deciding, in isolation, to implement a waste treatment project generated in the animal protein chain for the production of biogas on their properties,” said a manifesto from the producers and bioenergy specialists.

The document, released at the South Brazilian Biogas and Biomethane Forum on Apr. 18 in Foz do Iguaçu, in the far west of Paraná, calls for greater support from the public sector and from companies that link biogas production and the meat industry, for their “strategic value for Brazil’s energy transition.”

Only 333 animal waste biogas plants are suppliers to the national electricity grid, that is, 0.005 percent of Brazil’s 6.5 million livestock farms, the document stressed.

José Luis Márquez, Yaisema Fabelo and their son Yadir stand around a table holding fruits harvested from their Los Tres Hermanos agroecological farm, in Martí, a municipality in northwestern Cuba. The family of farmers values ​​the final products of biogas technology, rich in nutrients suitable for fertilizing and restoring the soil. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Luis Brizuela
MARTÍ, Cuba , Apr 20 2023 (IPS)

The first five biomethane-fuelled buses in the Cuban municipality of Martí will not only be a milestone in the country but will also represent a solution to the serious problem of transportation, while reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and bolstering local development.

Yaisema Fabelo, a librarian at the local prep school, told IPS that “the buses will boost the quality of life of the residents” of the municipality located in the north of the western province of Matanzas, about 200 kilometers east of Havana.

Fabelo, who is also a farmer from the Los Tres Hermanos agroecological farm, stressed that using biogas on an industrial scale and on individual farms “to produce electricity, cook food and obtain biofertilizers for organic crops” will benefit the 22,000 inhabitants of the municipality and surrounding areas.

The Martí I and nearby Martí II covered lagoon biodigesters will produce around 1,800 and 3,600 cubic meters of biogas per day, respectively, when they come into operation. They will connect through two separate gas pipelines with a biomethane plant where the fuel will be obtained for a group of buses. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

The project

Turning pig manure and crop waste into biomethane and biogas is the focus of the project “Global Action for Climate Change in Cuba: Municipality of Martí, towards a carbon-neutral sustainable development model.”

The project, carried out by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Ministry of Economy and Planning with 5.5 million dollars in financing disbursed by the European Union, began to be implemented in 2020 and is to be completed in 2024.“[We want] to demonstrate that the biodigesters are economically feasible for Cuba, that connected with large pig farms they can be used to generate electricity and contribute to the economy." -- Anober Aguilar

“The main problem that Martí has ​​in the case of greenhouse gases is waste, responsible for 57 percent of our emissions,” explained Sobeida Reyes, director of territorial development for the town.

In an interview with IPS, the official pointed out that with the project and as part of the local development strategy, the aim is to gradually contribute to decarbonization with the use of renewable energy sources and incorporate biogas to biomethane conversion technology.

Biogas is composed mainly of methane and carbon dioxide, obtained in biodigesters from the decomposition of organic residues such as agricultural or livestock waste by bacteria, through anaerobic digestion, without oxygen.

Biomethane, also known as a renewable gas, is derived from a treatment process that removes carbon dioxide, moisture, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, among other impurities from biogas, which brings its composition closer to that of fossil natural gas and favors its use to generate electricity and heat and to fuel vehicles.

The plan is to strengthen the public transport system through “16 buses powered by biomethane, the first five of which are to be tested in February 2024, after a bidding process outlined in the project that will facilitate their importation,” Reyes said.

“There is a commitment that these buses will be driven by women,” she added.

The future biomethane plant, which has already been awarded in tender, will provide, according to the plan, about 150 cubic meters per hour of gas suitable for bottling.

It will depend on the Martí I and Martí II covered lagoon biodigesters, which will be the largest in the country and will produce around 1,800 and 3,600 cubic meters of biogas per day, respectively, when they come into operation.

These, in turn, will each be fed by a pig breeding center belonging to the Matanzas Pork Company.

A third of the 14 kilometers of gas pipelines that will connect both biodigesters to the biomethane plant have already been put in place.

The generator is also being installed, while the lagoon is being filled with water to check its operation. The last thing needed is to put in place the membrane that will cover it.

This part is expected to be operational in February of next year, as well as the biomethane plant, so that the first five buses can then be tested, according to the established timeframe.

With the help of an electricity generator, the Martí I biodigester is to provide 100 kilowatts per hour, equivalent to the approximate consumption of 80 to 100 homes. The Martí II will provide even more.

A poster shows what the Martí I covered lagoon biodigester will look like. For Anober Aguilar, a specialist at the Indio Hatuey Pastures and Forages Experimental Station, responsible for the technological assembly, the construction of this type of biodigesters is economically feasible in Cuba. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Greater commitment to biogas

A potent greenhouse gas, methane has 80 times the climate-warming power of carbon dioxide, studies show.

Scientists argue that proper management of methane resulting from the decomposition of agricultural waste and livestock manure helps to mitigate water and soil pollution and to combat climate change.

Its extraction and energy use, especially in rural and semi-urban settings, can be a cost-effective solution to reduce the consumption of electricity based on fossil sources. In Cuba there are an estimated 5,000 small-scale (up to 24 cubic meters per day) biodigesters.

In this country of 11.1 million inhabitants, a significant percentage of the 3.9 million households use electricity as the main source of energy for cooking and heating water for bathing.

Renewable energy sources account for only five percent of the national energy mix.

In the case of biogas, “the main obstacle to its expansion is the availability of manure, as there is a low number of pigs and cattle, due to problems with feed and animal nutrition,” Anober Aguilar, an expert with the Indio Hatuey Pasture and Forage Experimental Station, located in Perico, another municipality of Matanzas, told IPS.

This scientific research center for technological management and innovation in the field of livestock production is in charge of the technological assembly of the biodigesters of the covered lagoon in Martí.

In the context of an economic crisis that has lasted for three decades, exacerbated by the tightening of the U.S, embargo, the COVID pandemic, and failed or delayed economic reforms, Cuba has limited imports of animal feed due to the shortage of foreign currency.

Furthermore, insufficient harvests do not guarantee abundant raw material to produce feed, while the scarcity of construction materials and their high cost make it impossible for many farmers to undertake the construction of a biodigester.

Conservative estimates by experts suggest that there is potential to expand the network of biodigesters on the island to up to 20,000 units, at least small-scale ones.

“If we look at the cost of the investment in the short term, it is more feasible to focus on wind or solar energy, because setting up a biodigester requires more financing, more time and specialized personnel,” explained Aguilar.

But seen at a distance of 10 to 15 years, “the investment evens out, because the potential of photovoltaic cells declines, repairs are made difficult by the rapid changes in technology, or the blades of the windmills deteriorate, in addition to the fact that both are more vulnerable to tropical cyclones,” the expert said.

“As long as they have raw material, biodigesters produce 24 hours a day,” he added.

He specified that one of the objectives of the project is “to demonstrate that the biodigesters are economically feasible for Cuba, that connected with large pig farms they can be used to generate electricity and contribute to the economy.”

Ministerial Order 395 of April 2021, of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, stipulated that each of the 168 Cuban municipalities must have a development program and strategy regarding biogas, and coordinate their management and implementation with those of their respective province.

Electrical technician Reinaldo Álvarez shows the electric generator located in the Martí I covered lagoon biodigester, in northwestern Cuba, which will provide about 100 kilowatt hours, equivalent to the electricity consumption of 80 to 100 homes. The nearby Martí II biodigester will produce even more. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Promoting agroecology

Martí’s development strategy includes projects to prepare preserves, spices and dehydrated foods with the help of the sun, a biomass gasifier for drying rice and generating electricity, the production of cooking oil, thermal baths, exploiting natural asphalt deposits, and social works, among others.

Reyes reported that 28 farms in the municipality have biodigesters, and that in 12 of them, as part of the project, “a module was delivered that includes a refrigerator, a stove, a rice cooker and a lamp, which use biogas.”

Another urgent objective is to foment agroecology and move towards local self-sufficiency in food, including animal feed.

“In the current harvest we had a yield per hectare of 19 tons of organic potatoes. As with the other crops, we only used biological products, of which more than 80 percent were produced by us,” farmer José Luis Márquez explained to IPS.

The 13-hectare Los Tres Hermanos agroecological teaching farm, dedicated to growing a variety of crops and small livestock using sustainable techniques, was granted in usufruct by the government, forms part of the Ciro Redondo credit and services cooperative, and has been managed by Márquez since 2018, together with his wife Yaisema Fabelo and their son Yadir.

A nationally manufactured PVC (polyvinyl chloride) tubular biodigester is also installed on the farm, with a volume of forty cubic meters.

“Due to the pandemic and the shortage of manure, it is not producing. We want to once again encourage pig and rabbit farming, recycle solid waste and convert it into organic fertilizer for crops and household chores,” said Márquez.

Biogas technology provides biol and biosol, liquid effluent and sludge, respectively, rich in nutrients to fertilize and restore the soil.

The farm is visited by students from different levels of education, up to prep school, who through workshops given by Márquez and Fabelo, learn about good agroecological practices “and the positive impact on the economy, people’s health and the environment,” Fabelo said.

A view of the new Caucaia landfill, near Fortaleza, capital of the state of Ceará in northeastern Brazil, which receives about 5,000 tons of garbage a day. It already produces biogas, but will do so on a larger scale in a few years. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
FORTALEZA, Brazil, Oct 7 2022 (IPS)

Garbage that has accumulated since 1991 in the two landfills in the municipality of Caucaia has become a biomethane deposit that supplies industrial and commercial companies, thermoelectric plants and homes in Ceará, a state in northeastern Brazil.

The GNR Fortaleza plant extracts biogas from 700 wells installed in the landfills and refines it to obtain what it calls renewable natural gas – which gives the company its name – as opposed to fossil natural gas.

The plant, with a total area of 73 hectares, is located between two open-air landfills that resemble small plateaus in Caucaia, a municipality about 15 kilometers from the state capital Fortaleza, whose outskirts it forms part of, and produces about 100,000 cubic meters of biogas per day.

In addition to the climate benefit of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, biomethane today costs 30 percent less than its fossil equivalent, said Thales Motta, director of GNR Fortaleza as representative of Ecometano, a Rio de Janeiro-based company specializing in the use of biomass gases.

“It is a good business” because its price is adjusted according to national inflation and is not subject to exchange rate fluctuations and international hydrocarbon prices, as is the case with fossil gas, he told IPS.

Ecometano partnered with Marquise Ambiental, a company that manages landfills locally and in other parts of Brazil, to create the GNR in Caucaia.

Another decisive collaboration came from the state-owned Ceará Gas Company (Cegás), which agreed to incorporate biomethane into its natural gas distribution network, right from the start, in 2018, when the new fuel cost 30 percent more than fossil natural gas and faced misgivings about its quality and stability of supply, Motta said.

The agreement allows for the direct injection of biomethane into the Cegás grid and a share of around 15 percent of the consumption of the distributor’s 24,000 customers.

Industry is the main consumer, accounting for 46.26 percent of the total, followed by thermal power plants and motor vehicles. Residential consumption amounts to just 0.73 percent. Cegás prioritizes large consumers.

Ecometano is a pioneer in the production of biomethane from waste. It started in 2014 with a smaller plant, with a capacity for 14,000 cubic meters per day, GNR Dos Arcos, located in São Pedro da Aldeia, a coastal city of 108,000 people 140 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro.

In Caucaia, a municipality of 370,000 people near the coast of Ceará, the new landfill, in operation since 2019, receives 5,000 tons of garbage daily from Greater Fortaleza and its 4.2 million inhabitants.

The old landfill, which opened in 1991 and is now closed, is still the main source of biogas. But production is in continuous decline, unlike the new one, which is growing with the daily influx of garbage brought in by hundreds of trucks.

GNR Fortaleza’s experience has encouraged the dissemination of similar plants in metropolitan regions and large cities, due to the profitability of the business and because reducing methane emissions is key to mitigating the climate crisis.

Methane is at least 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, the gas with the highest emissions, in terms of global warming. The 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) on climate change, held in Glasgow, Scotland in November 2021, set a goal of cutting methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030.

Thales Motta, director of GNR Fortaleza, stands in front of the biomethane plant located in northeastern Brazil, the development of which required overcoming prejudices, mistrust and misinformation to open up the market for gas generated from garbage. Now biomethane is expanding, making use of landfills and agricultural biomass. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
FORTALEZA, Brazil , Sep 5 2022 (IPS)

The increasing productivity with which humankind generates waste has gained at least one sustainable counterpart: the extraction of biogas from landfills, a growing activity in Brazil.

"There was a great deal of prejudice even among engineers, skepticism in the gas companies. We had to present analyses and quality tests that were more rigorous than the ones required for fossil fuel gas. But we broke down the barrier of discredit and opened a new market, proving that it is a safe, stable gas with predictable prices.” -- Thales Motta
Two small plateaus stand out in the landscape on the outskirts of Caucaia, one of the 19 municipalities that make up the metropolitan region of Fortaleza, capital of the state of Ceará in the Northeast of the country.

Although they look similar, one of the hills receives about 5,000 tons per day of solid waste collected in the metropolitan region of 4.2 million inhabitants. The other, the old sanitary landfill which began to operate in 1991, is already closed, but it is the one that generates more gas.

“We are pioneers in the production of biomethane from garbage,” said Thales Motta, director of Fortaleza Renewable Natural Gas (GNR), a partnership between the private companies Ecometano, of the MDC renewable energy and natural gas group, and Marquise Ambiental, of Fortaleza, which manages the Caucaia landfills.

Biomethane is the by-product of biogas refining that removes other gases, such as carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide.

GNR Fortaleza produces about 100,000 cubic meters per day of this gas, which is sold to the state-owned Ceará Gas Company (Cegás), which mixes it with natural gas in its pipelines.

“We supply 15 percent of the gas distributed by Cegás, which trusted the quality of our biomethane,” Motta said during IPS’s visit to the GNR plant, inaugurated in December 2017.

This labyrinth of pipes collect biogas from the landfill and refine it to produce biomethane with 95 percent purity. The renewable gas is mixed with natural gas for industrial use, in vehicles and thermoelectric plants, as well as in homes and businesses in the metropolitan region of Fortaleza, in northeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Initial difficulties

Ecometano’s pioneering activity is due to another plant, Dos Arcos, established in 2014 in São Pedro da Aldeia, a coastal city of 108,000 inhabitants, 140 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro. Its capacity is limited to 14,000 cubic meters per day.

“There was no regulation for biomethane then and the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels denied us authorization to sell it,” said Motta, an electrical engineer. There were losses; the sales were made directly to a limited number of customers, such as supermarkets.

But the company persevered and the regulation came out in 2017, shortly before the start of GNR Fortaleza’s operations.

“There was a great deal of prejudice even among engineers, skepticism in the gas companies. We had to present analyses and quality tests that were more rigorous than the ones required for fossil fuel gas,” said the plant manager.

“But we broke down the barrier of discredit and opened a new market, proving that it is a safe, stable gas with predictable prices,” he added.

A view of the new Caucaia landfill, near Fortaleza, capital of the state of Ceará in northeastern Brazil, which receives about 5,000 tons of garbage a day. It already produces biogas, but will do so on a larger scale in a few years. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Advantageous costs

At the beginning, biomethane cost 30 percent more, but today it is 30 percent cheaper than natural gas, in view of the rise in fossil fuels, he pointed out. Its price depends on internal factors, such as inflation, and is not subject to unpredictable oil prices on the international market or exchange rate fluctuations, he stressed.

“Biomethane competes with fossil gas on an advantageous footing today. But even if oil becomes cheaper, the market is predisposed to betting on biomethane” because of environmental issues, he said.

“Cegás decided to distribute biomethane because it considers it strategic to diversify its mix with a cleaner, renewable and sustainable gas, thus contributing to reducing pollution and improving the environment,” the company’s president, Hugo de Figueiredo Junior, told IPS.

“It is also an opportunity to expand suppliers, competition and conditions to offer better prices to the end consumer,” he added.

Cegás, in which the state of Ceará is a majority shareholder, was a pioneer within Brazil in the injection of biomethane into its network, starting in May 2018.

The nearly 15 percent proportion of biomethane in the total volume constitutes “one of the highest percentages of renewable gas injected into the grid by a distributor in the world,” Figueiredo said.

That proportion may expand in the future, but biomethane faces several challenges, he added.

There is a need to disseminate existing technological solutions and facilitate access to them, expand knowledge about potential uses of green gases, and improve regulation and processes for the collection and disposal of solid waste and wastewater, he said.

The old landfill, now covered, still generates biogas that is converted to biomethane by refining, in Caucaia in northeastern Brazil. The dark lake is leachate, a highly polluting waste liquid that is treated before being discarded by sprinkling it on the soil. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Expansion

In terms of production, GNR Fortaleza is now the second largest biomethane plant in Brazil. It is surpassed by Gas Verde, from Seropédica, a town near Rio de Janeiro, which has been producing 120,000 cubic meters per day since 2019.

Many interested parties visit GNR, which has become a reference point for gas generated from waste because it has developed process technologies that make it possible to integrate equipment from different national and international suppliers, “with its own codes that are open” to anyone, said Motta.

Currently, many companies that extract biogas from landfills for electricity generation are preparing to convert their plants to biomethane production, he said.

“We receive visits here from universities and groups of interested parties. We have to build an auditorium for lectures. There was no laboratory for biomethane analysis in the Northeast. Now we have one and research on this gas is mushrooming,” Motta said.

But it is necessary to take a broader view, he acknowledged. Landfills are limited. A minimum of 2,000 tons of waste per day is needed to make a biomethane plant viable, he estimated. Only large cities with at least one million inhabitants generate that much solid waste.

“We have to look for other kinds of biomass,” he said.

Hundreds of trucks travel the roads transporting garbage to the Caucaia landfill, some 20 kilometers from Fortaleza, the capital of the state of Ceará in Brazil’s Northeast region. About 5,000 tons of garbage are produced daily from the metropolitan region, which has 4.2 million inhabitants. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

This process is already underway, especially in the South and Southeast regions of Brazil, where largescale agricultural production offers a large volume of waste. Sugarcane is the main source of biomass, as it is also planted to produce ethanol, whose consumption in vehicles is on par with that of gasoline.

Livestock manure, especially from pigs, drives the production of biogas for electricity generation, and a growing proportion goes towards conversion into biomethane, especially for use in vehicles.

“Biomethane is a suitable fuel for the energy transition, has more predictable prices (than fossil fuels) and can be produced in regions far from the existing natural gas network,” which in Brazil is concentrated along the eastern coast, Figueiredo, the president of Cegás, said from the company’s headquarters in Fortaleza.

But not having a pipeline nearby can frustrate large projects, Motta said. He gave the example of a sugar agribusiness company that could produce 30,000 cubic meters of methane a day. As this is double its own consumption and the nearest big city is 90 kilometers away, the project was unfeasible.

Harnessing gas from garbage, and from biomass in general, has become an urgent necessity in the face of the climate emergency. Methane contributes more intensely to the greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas, which is used to gauge threats to the climate.

Brazil and other countries pledged to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030, as a crucial step towards keeping global warming to a maximum of two degrees Celsius by 2050.

GNR Fortaleza, located in Caucaia, a city of some 370,000 inhabitants 15 kilometers from Fortaleza, plays an environmental role. But in terms of employment, it generates only 32 direct jobs and an uncertain number of indirect jobs, including outsourced services, temporary consultants and suppliers of certain equipment.

Cegás serves only 24,000 gas consumers in Greater Fortaleza. According to its data, industry accounts for 46.26 percent of consumption, thermoelectric plants for 30 percent and motor vehicles for 22.71 percent. There is little left – just 0.73 percent for households and 1.22 percent for commerce.