Biogaz is gas which is not of fossil origin, and emanates from the decomposition and treatment of organic waste.
MO12345LEMONDE With AFP
For the moment, it is fueled mainly with scraps of corn transformation. The largest biogas factory in France is put into service near Pau, in the Pyrénées-Atlantique, said the Totalenergies group, Thursday, January 12.
Ten years after the judgment of the commercial operation of the only French gas deposit, LACQ, the Biobearn unit, located in Mourenx about ten kilometers, “injects biomethane into the network since Wednesday”, said Olivier Guerrini, biogas director of the large oil and gas industrial group.
Biogas is gas which is not of fossil origin, and emanates from the decomposition and treatment of organic waste; It is the same methane molecule as natural gas, which can be injected into gas pipelines.
At first, the production of biomethane will reach 69 GWh in 2023, the equivalent of the annual consumption of 14,000 inhabitants, and will value 95,000 tonnes of agricultural waste this year. At full speed, it should reach 160 GWh/year. The site uses “for the moment essentially waste from the food industry”, according to Mr. Guerrini, who insists that there is “no energy culture in the units of total”:
“We recover by-products from the corn industry, especially crushed pods, it happens in trucks, we sweat it and then we methanize it. This waste from the corn industry was sent very far, We collect them as close as possible now, within 30 km. “
” Eighth installation similar in France “
A diversification of inputs, with cattle or pig readers, or residues from the cooked dishes industry, is planned and totalnergies works for partnerships to soon also also have biodechets corresponding to the scraps of supermarkets and collective catering , peelings and other table remains in buildings.
Six people work daily on the site, which can generate up to thirty indirect jobs, including those working for gas injection or spreading in the fields of fertilizers from the Methanisation, also called “digestate” and nitrogen container, potash, phosphate or sodium, beneficial for floors. 89,000 tonnes of these fertilizers will be produced this year.
Totalnergies, of which it is “the eighth installation similar in France”, has “40 to 50 projects whose 2030 in France in France”, according to Mr. Guerrini. Totalenergies is in full acceleration in biogas after the buyout, in 2021, of Biogaz fonroca: the group has two facilities in the United States, one of which is under construction, also under construction in India and 18 in Poland, of a recent buyout.