Fermenting a plan for energy
Farmers repurpose crops, waste to help Europe wean itself off Russian fossil fuels
SONCHAMP, France — In lush fields southwest of Paris, farmers are joining Europe’s fight to free itself from Russian gas.
They’ll soon turn on the tap of a new facility where crops and agricultural waste are mashed up and fermented to produce “biogas.” It’s among energy solutions being promoted on the continent that wants to choke off funding for Russia’s war in Ukraine by no longer paying billions for Russian fossil fuels.
Small rural gas plants that provide energy for hundreds or thousands of nearby homes aren’t — at least anytime soon — going to supplant the huge flows to Europe of Russian gas that powers economies, factories, business and homes. And critics of using crops to make gas argue that farmers should be concentrating on growing food — especially when prices are soaring amid the fallout of the war in Ukraine, one of the world’s breadbaskets.
Still, biogas is part of the puzzle of how to reduce Europe’s energy dependence.
The European Biogas Association says the European Union could quickly scale up production of bio-methane, which is pumped into natural gas networks. An investment of $87.5 billion — which, at current market prices, is less than the EU’S 27 nations pay per year to Russia for piped natural gas — would produce a tenfold increase in bio-methane production by 2030 and could replace about a fifth of what the bloc imported from Russia last year, the group says.
The farmers around the Paris-region village of Sonchamp feel their new gas plant will do its bit to untie Europe from the Kremlin.
“It’s not coherent to go and buy gas from those people who are waging war on our friends,” said Christophe Robin, one of the plant’s six investors, who farms wheat, rapeseed, sugar beets and chickens.
“If we want to consume green (energy) and to avoid the flows and contribution of Russian gas, we don’t really have a choice,” he said.
Biogas is made by fermenting organic materials — generally crops and waste.
Robin likened the process to food left too long in a container.
“When you open it, it goes ‘poof.’ Only here, we don’t open it. We collect the gas that comes from the fermentation,” he said.
The gas from their plant could meet the needs of 2,000 homes. It will be purified into bio-methane and injected into a pipeline to the nearby town of Rambouillet, heating its hospital, swimming pool and homes.
Like in the rest of Europe, the production of bio-methane in France is still small. But it is booming. Almost three bio-methane production sites are going online every week in France on average and their numbers have surged from just 44 at the end of 2017 to 365 last year. The volume of gas they produced for the national network almost doubled in 2021 compared with 2020 and was enough for 362,000 homes.
France’s government has taken steps to quicken bio-methane development since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. The industry says bio-methane met almost 1% of France’s needs in 2021 but that will increase to at least 2% this year and it could make up 20% of French gas consumption by 2030. That’s more gas than France imported last year from Russia.