The Nordic Council of Ministers is Policy Area Coordinator for Bioeconomy in EU’s Baltic Sea Region Strategy.
Today the Council of Nordic Ministers signed the Letter of dedication and support of the COASTAL Biogas application.
Using cast seaweed as a feedstock and use the digestate as a fertilizer is an elegant way to close the nutrients loop and take a first step towards a circular bioeconomy. There are many other socioeconomic benefits that will be explored within the COASTAL Biogas project.
The Pre-BASIC Biogas Seminar attracted 65 participants from 11 countries.
A snapshot of the audiance, eager to hear more about anaerobic digestion and digestate utilization as means to mitigate eutrophication in the Baltic Sea basin.
12 presentations were given by national and international experts. Focus was on
Dr. Knud Tybirk, Samsø Municipality gave a presentation on the results and recommendations from the Baltic Manure project and Danish biogas results from 2016 on manure co-substrates.
Desirée Grahn, Director of Biogas Syd, gave a presentation on the ongoing Biogas 2020 project and results from the recently finished BIOGASSYS project.
Thies Fellenberg, Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe (FNR) gave an overview of biogas upgrading in Germany.
The seminar chairman, Jörgen Held, concluded that even if manure is used in many commercial installations it’s evident that just a small fraction of the potential is utilized. Anerobic digestion of aquatic substrates has been discussed for several years and it’s good to see that seaweed now is starting to be used in industrial scale plants such as the Solrød biogas plant in Denmark and that we are just in the very beginning of an interesting development. These observations are also good indications that the BASIC Biogas efforts on manure and aquatic substrates in combination with digestate utilization as means to reduce the eutrophication in the Baltic Sea area are spot on.
All the presentations are available online at http://pre-basic.renewtec.se/pre-basic-biogas-seminar/. Just click on the titles to download the presentation in PDF-format.
On the 22nd of September, the Pre-BASIC Biogas coordinator visited FNR in Gülzow-Prüzen together with Prof. Frank Scholwin, Rostock University.
The application to the South Baltic Sea Programme regarding a Baltic Sea Innovation Cluster on Biogas (BASIC Biogas) was discussed. FNR has vast experience of the biogas process, from feedstock to final product(s), as well as participation in, and coordination of INTERREG and European projects.
From left: Jörgen Held, Renewtec AB, Petra Schüsseler, Vincent Pelikan, Birger Kerckow and Thies Fellenberg, FNR, and Frank Scholwin, Rostock University.
On the 9th of August the Pre-BASIC Biogas coordinator visited Gdansk University of Technology (GUT) and InnoBaltica Ltd. to discuss the possibility for GUT to join the BASIC Biogas application to the South Baltic Sea Programme.
From left. Aleksandra Korkosz, GUT, Jörgen Held, Renewtec AB, Robert Aranowski, GUT, Katarzyna Dembowska, InnoBaltica, Zaneta Barganska, GUT and Jaroslaw Pawlowski, InnoBaltica.
After the meeting Robert Aranowski gave an appreciated guided tour in the biogas laboratory showing several lab scale digestors and a facility for nutrients recovery.
On the 6th of August a study tour to a combined ethanol, biogas and CHP facility in Piaszczyna took place. The facility is highly integrated. Ethanol is made of corn and the residues are digested in two anaerobic digestors. The biogas is used for electricity production and to provide heat for the destillation process as well as for drying and heating the digestors which operate at approx. 40 °C. Process water is to be cleaned in an algae cultivation in order to close the water loop and provide additional substrate to the anaerobic digestors. Finally the digestate is dried and used as a fertilizer. In this way the nutrients and water loop are closed and the facility produces no waste streams at the same time as a high energy efficiency is obtained.
Dr. Jörgen Held, Prof. Michal Jasiulewicz and B.Eng. Jerzy Kolodziej, Technology Manager at the facility, in front of the digestate dryer.
The biogas is used for CHP production in two Jenbacher gas engines.