Energy and BiomassFermenting Contradictions: Can We Rehabilitate Biogas as a Green Energy?Nicolas Schenkel, Mischa Engeler, and Nicola Nussbaumer

A cow’s digestion relies on bacteria and other microbes to break down fodder into usable energy. This process, called anaerobic fermentation, is the same that extracts biogas from a variety of organic substrates in a biogas plant. Due to the direct availability of such substrates, the agricultural sector has been a key driver in the development of the technology. But how exactly does a typical biogas power plant operate within the field of agriculture?

Evidently, biogas production has not always been part of agriculture. The farmer as energy provider is only one symptom of a long process that has alienated agriculture from its originally singular purpose of feeding people. Ingrained in the logics of a global market, farmers today develop various strategies to subsist in spite of economic pressure.

Edmund Paeffgen runs one of the largest biogas plants in the Rheinland. He is convinced that biogas can fulfil an important role in a renewable future. But according to Paeffgen, efficient biogas production can only succeed with full dedication and expertise.

Gottfried Liesen and his family decided to invest in a biogas plant in 2011 to help compensate low prices on the German crop market. However, biogas has proven to be a volatile source of income as well. The evolution of subsidies has very direct implications on both farming and biogas production.

For Christoph and Anne Pott, their biogas plant has become a helpful tool in adopting a more circular mode of farming. When economic growth is not the primary target, energy from waste shows its benefits for agriculture and the environment. But from an energy perspective, the more sustainable model entails an efficiency deficit.

Breaking out of the constraints of an industrialised agriculture, a cooperative network of producers embraces the specific qualities biogas offers. By supporting the other renewable energies and granting waste products a purpose, biogas gains a new position in society. And perhaps, this cooperative system can help farming return into the public consciousness.