Saturday, September 8, 2012

Biogas under attack in Germany


While farmers and meat packers in the United States and Canada lobby for a reduction in corn demand to produce ethanol, farmers in Germany have another alternative-energy government subsidy program in their crosshairs.
There it is growing crops that are chopped up to feed biogas-producing digesters that generate electricity.
Land that was growing crops for cattle and was pasture for sheep is now growing corn to generate electricity.
The Renewable Energy Act in Germany is subsidizing the energy that is produced through these facilities for 20 years. As a result, some dairy farmers are forced to feed their cows imported soy meal from Brazil and chicken producers are importing corn.
The program started eight years ago when there was overproduction of commodities and this program was devised to set up small eco-power plants to run on corn.
Each biogas facility needs 200 hectares of corn, and now the nation grows 810,000 hectares of “energy corn”.
Every crop other than corn is becoming more expensive, even potatoes.
Competition by investors bidding up land to grow corn is causing strife for original farm land owners.
Corn farmers are abandoning crop rotation to grow corn on corn, at the cost of losing song birds and wild life habitat.
Many recognize the program as being an environmental disaster, as farming the marshes releases carbon, and fermented corn waste from the facilities applied to the fields is causing groundwater nitrate pollution.
The program has taken on a political life of its own, but now has limited the amount of corn that can be used for biogas to 60 percent of the crop.
Recently a group of academic researchers called for an end to the program, as the biogas plants continue to be built.

They said that the inefficiency of the land use to generate electricity through biogas is far below that of wind and solar.

Wind is 10 times more efficient and solar five times, as compared to biogas land use.

Some who support the corn to biogas program say that through the use of natural gas and improved technology it will prove worthwhile given time.

Germany’s goal is to produce all electricity through renewable means by 2050 while phasing out nuclear.