Page 95 - Inpiantistica industriale

The anaerobic digestion, the soil health of our farms and communities by
a natural process where recycling nutrients and carbon in organic waste
“bacteria back into the soil.
Reducing emissions from the energy, waste,
decompose organic waste in the and agriculture sectors is crucial in our global
absence of oxygen to produce fight against climate change. The protection
of our biosphere and the advance innovative
biogas and digestate, allows technologies go hand-in-hand. the final result
the recycling of excess organic is the creation of a circular economy diverting
waste, creating renewable organic waste from landfills, generating envi-
ronmentally friendly fuel, and producing an or-
energy, and returning nutrients ganic soil amendment that offsets the use of
and carbon back to the soil - synthetic fertilizers and locks atmospheric car-
bon in the ground.
all with a significant impacts
on reducing greenhouse gas Anaerobic digestion (AD)
emissions AD is a natural process in which bacteria break

down organic waste (e.g., food waste, manu-
res, etc.) in the absence of oxygen.
liency of its energy system. Biogas can also be The purpose of AD is three-fold:
refined into renewable natural gas (RNG), which • To produce biogas, which can be used lo-
is fully interchangeable with conventional, fossil cally to generate heat and / or electrici-
fuel-based natural gas and has the potential to ty in a combined heat and power plant or
displace over 40% of conventional natural gas processed into renewable natural gas and
usage in transportation. Fueling vehicles with integrated into our energy grid.
RNG could prevent 5 tons of GHG emissions • To divert organic waste from our MSW wa-
annually, per each passenger cars fueled with ste stream and prevent environmental and
biomethane. social impacts associated with landfills and
AD prevents organic waste from rotting in incinerators,
landfills and emitting harmful methane into the • To produce digestate as organic soil
atmosphere. Unlike open-air landfills and even amendment that increase soil fertility and
composting facilities, AD processes organic crop yields by returning carbon and nu-
waste in a closed environment, capturing and trients back to farmland, gardens, and lan-
containing all emissions in the end-products dscapes. 1
of biogas and digestate and, preventing those AD facilities have three stages: feedstock re-
emissions from being released into the atmo- ceipt, the digestion process, and end-product
sphere. utilization (see Figure 1).
Digestate, an often-overlooked end product of
AD, is an organic soil amendment that The Feedstock Receipt
replaces synthetic fertilizers and sequesters The term feedstock means any organic input to
carbon back into the soil. Digestate improves an AD facility.

Impiantistica Italiana - Maggio-Giugno 2021 91