Waste Not: Biogas and the Rural Blind Spot | Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

Description

When we picture the energy transition, we picture it from the city: rooftop solar, heat pumps, electric cars. Farms enter the picture mostly as a problem, through livestock emissions or competition for land. Biogas sits in that blind spot. It is rarely named among renewables, often associated with waste, and still a small share of European gas supply.

Piero Gattoni is a farmer and livestock breeder in the Po Valley, President of the Consorzio Italiano Biogas and, since 2025, President of the European Biogas Association. He argues the reverse of the dominant picture: farming sits at the core of the transition, because cutting emissions will not restore the carbon balance without the soil. We recorded this conversation in Brussels during European Biomethane Week.

We discuss:

Why a dairy farm with tight margins turned to energy as a second market
How digestate returns organic matter to the soil and replaces chemical fertiliser
Why food, feed and energy can share the same land
Where Italian biomethane goes today, and why it does not yet reach household heating
Why the first farmers to invest had to organise together
What long-term policy would mean for farmers and industry alike

A conversation about whose land, knowledge and trust the transition relies on, and who it still overlooks.

Energ'Ethic, with Marine Cornelis of Next Energy Consumer: the energy transition examined through the people it touches and the systems that govern it. If you are working on a related mandate or research question, you can reach her at contact@nextenergyconsumer.eu

Energ' Ethic goes out every other week.

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Music: I Need You Here - Kamarius
Edition: Podcast Media Factory

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Transcription

Speaker #0
If you don't use the soil, which is the best place how to stock carbon, if you don't change the way we are farming, we will never get the result that we need. And this is clearly written in every EPPC report and everything. We not just have to mitigate, we also have to capture.
Speaker #1
When we picture the energy transition, usually we picture it from Cities, from rooftop solar, from heat pumps, electric cars, households comparing their bills. We talk a lot about electrification, of course, and it's fair. It's, of course, so much lighter on CO2 emissions. But farms and rural communities, they tend to be kind of overlooked. Biogas sits exactly... at that in in this blind spot before preparing this episode i must say i was completely ignorant of the sector and i mostly associated with the waste and with the debate on cattle emissions and i suspect many of my listeners do too so that gap I'm saying an understanding. I think it matters as well, because that's also why I accepted with great pleasure the invitation from the European Biogas Association to join them at this European Biomethan Week. And I think it's really important to have this discussion because I really think, of course, you know me now that trust, public trust really shapes the world we live in. And decisions must be made in a way that embrace the variety of the population in the territories we are living in. And also where and how biomethan is made, how it should go, etc. My guest today is Piero Gastoni. Welcome, Piero. Piero is a farmer and a livestock breeder from Lombardia in northern Italy. He's the president of the Consorzio Italiano Biogas. And since 2025, you're also the president of the European Biogas Association. So he speaks from the farm. Well, actually from the European Biomethan Conference today. But he speaks as a farmer and as, you know, someone who knows the sector from the inside. So I think... You're probably the best person to talk about this topic and really help us understand why it is so strategically important for European lifestyle, for European safety of supply, but also in terms of how the biogas industry plays a key role in our sustainable future. So, Piero, maybe you could tell us a little bit about your story. Why biogas? What got you hooked?
Speaker #0
Why biogas? So first of all, after my study, I decided to come back and run my family farms. You know, as you said, it's a mixed farming in the north part of Italy, in the Po Valley. So we produce, we go cows and I heard of cows and we produce animal feed like, you know, forage and cereal. and this was a very the kind of farm that I've been, you know, I've been facing when I first started working with my father. By that time was early 2000, you know, the economics of the farm was quite tight and also because I could understand that I was producing a lot for producer commodities, mostly, you know, milk is a commodity and so I didn't have this, I couldn't find the way I could develop. the farm. So I started looking at energy as a potential other market. And I thought this was interesting. And by that time was the 2020 target period for European. So basically, European was pushing to produce a little more renewable energy. Okay, so the transition was not so inside the topic still, but we could see that Europe was starting to push to have renewable energy and biomass was one of those. So I start. Going around Europe, I went to Germany, Austria, Sweden to see different kind of production from different kind of production and I found the biogas technology the right one to complete my farm because I did have a hearth through anaerobic digestion which is basically like having a big, you know, something big, a big circle in which you put inside manure. You put inside byproducts and organic matter that's during fermentation produce biogas that go to a CHP, to a motor, to a CHP to produce energy, electrical energy. So that's kind of technology, the oldest technology you can have because it's something that bacteria can produce this biogas. I could get value for something that was lost. So that was the start. I look around and I found that anaerobic digestion was the right technology to fit in my farm.
Speaker #1
That's interesting that you say taking value for something that would be lost, because it's not only monetary value, it's also a product that comes from the animals, comes from the residues. And as a farmer... you had to dispose of this product. So it had a cost also for you, probably, too. Yes. And you needed to understand a little bit better what to do with that cost.
Speaker #0
Yes. By that time, you know, there was a support scheme to produce biogas in Italy. And the support scheme was pretty open. You didn't have to use byproduct or manure, but you could also use crops to produce biogas. you That was exactly why from the beginning I found that to be in my farm to get energy, I didn't have to change the core business. But I did have to develop energy inside the core business. So that's why I found very interesting to get value from the manure and value from... different byproducts that, you know, agri-industry is producing close to me. And that's why I start restarting having a different model, technology model, with something that in agriculture it's always been doing. Because you said something in the beginning, you know, farms are for most part of the opinion of the people outside the transition.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
Mike Farming is the core of the transition. Because what is the transition? Transition is basically to work on the CO2 balance. Because for many years, we've been using CO2 that has been stocking inside the soil for centuries. And we've been burned soon to get the development of the industrial period. talk. If we want to restore this balance, yes, you need to mitigate the GHG and you have to mitigate through producing renewable energy through solar and wind.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So through solar and wind, you mitigate. But if you don't get inside the photosynthesis period, if you don't use the soil, which is the best place how to stock carbon. If you don't change the way we are farming, we will never get the result that we need. And this is clearly written in every EPPC report and everything. We not just have to mitigate, we also have to capture. And my farm, what it has done in the last 15 years, through our technology, we just concentred the... biomass is inside the digester. We produce energy, electrical renewable energy, and through digested, which is the byproduct after the anaerobic digestion, which is not burning. It's just digesting. So after all, the organic matter comes out through digested, which is an organic fertilizer. I restarting going organic matter to the soil. And having this, I could also increase a lot the rotation of my farm that in the past was probably 5% of the field. Now it's more than 50% of the field. So I get all the arable land covered all year round because we seed a winter crop and then a spring crop. So we make two crops from the same field. And so I get more carbon. I get more photosynthesis. And I can use the same land. to feed the cows and to produce energy. This is the concept. And I think this is the concept why that helped to, that's why biogas and biomethane can easily go through the debate of, you know, the debate of producing food, feed or energy. That was the first generation by four problems, you know, because you were using the land not to produce food. But to produce ends, so this was just displacing carbon to one market to another. We are keep producing our cheese, we are keep producing our meat, we are keep producing our products, and we are using the organic fertilizer, so reducing chemical fertilizer, and we are getting a better, so we are not just farming in a more sustainable way. we are also more competitive in the market.
Speaker #1
No, that's interesting because you completely overhaul the idea of extraction, like extracting from nature. It's really more like working with nature and making sure you feed it, you respect it, you give it back. And that's a complete, I mean, that's fascinating to see how sustainable it is. It's like the essence of sustainability, right? And very often... In the energy transition discourse, we also hear that places are competing. There is competition for land, like, as you said, for agriculture, for cattle's agriculture, like growing cereals or legumes for people and producing energy. And there was also recently some debates over electrical, like solar panels over farms, etc. Whereas you say, but there is also one element you haven't considered, which is biogas. which combines them all. And why is not everyone doing just like you do?
Speaker #0
Because, okay, so first of all, it's not easy and you need investment. I believe the ecological transition could be also that economic transition. And that is simple. I'm talking as a farmer. When you do an ecological choice... Most of the time you do also an economic choice.
Speaker #1
I mean, best.
Speaker #0
Okay. My tractors goes with precision farming, you know, with the satellites on precision farming. So I just measure. That means that when we work the land, if you don't have satellites, precision farming, you always end up working also a part of the land twice because you have to stay. On the safeguard, you know. And if you add the small part for farm, which is big, that's another farm.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So that means that once you get technology, you can grow in a more competitive way. So the idea that people have that transition is not economical is not true, especially in farming. It's just that you need investment. That's why it was so important for us to invest also in energy, because that gave us another market to help the up and down of the food market. It's not stable. And at the same time, it gave us the digested, which is so important for recover. fertilize the soil, restoring also the organic matter.
Speaker #1
And that's very, very interesting what you say, because earlier today we heard Commissioner Jorgensen talk about the 2022 crisis when Russia invaded Ukraine. And as at the time he was Minister for Energy and he was thinking that maybe he had to make some choices to cut the supply of some places. But he's from Denmark and biogas is quite popular. So it acted as some kind of guarantee or as a buffer that there would still be some gas in the system to... For instance, heat hospitals or schools and not leave people cold. Right now, what is interesting is that we are facing another gas crisis, another energy crisis, or maybe it's the continuation of the previous ones. But since a few months, there has been immense discussion and you can really see that policymakers are stressed over the fertilizers that they can't travel via the Strait of Hormuz. Or now there are these discussions with American gas or Russian gas and prices are extremely high. The biogas is still a fraction of what the European Union use, right? It's around 7%. Yes,
Speaker #0
it's still very low and very under, still very under on the target we have by 2030. So we need to push. Because it definitely could be an answer.
Speaker #1
And that's why I also find today's angle for the conference today was around the security. Because there are still sectors where it's just not possible to electrify. It demands too much energy. Your recent reports mention ceramics, for instance, or some places like that. So you just mentioned that you are under the current target, but you are going in a certain direction as well. Can you? Explain to us a little bit more the context around biogas and why it seems so important that the commissioner is coming today.
Speaker #0
Yes, but so let's go back to my, for one moment, my experience. So I started 15 years ago producing biogas and electrical and thermal energy through CHP.
Speaker #1
And that's heat and power.
Speaker #0
Heat and power. It was the first... Then we, I, and we started thinking that probably producing electrical energy through biogas could be not exactly the best choice for the future. Why? Because in the future, if you want to have electrical energy, you can have from solar and wind. You can program this energy, it's true. Biogas, you can program if you want. But still, you know, you need to get. to feed the plant. So you will have a cost that otherwise it's not. So the idea is that for me, from the beginning, when I saw this plant, I thought, oh, this is very important. I can't see my farm without anaerobic digestion. So we need, in our association, with the help of the industries, we need to start thinking also how to produce biomethane. Biomethane is just... 55% of the biogas.
Speaker #1
Okay.
Speaker #0
Because the other 45% basically is CO2, biogenic CO2. Okay. So there it is. Okay, we are producing biogas. This biogas can produce energy. But if we can upgrade the biogas into biomethane and compress the biomethane into natural gas grid, we can have a different kind of energy, which is stockable and we can use seasonable as well. And? that can be used from the hardwood-based sector industry, which they don't have any other option to decarbonize. So in 2022, I started a new project from my plant, and I built, I just upgraded the plant to produce biomethane. So I upgraded the plant, and I'm producing instead of electrical energy, Now I'm producing biomethane. I'm injecting biomethane in the transport distribution grid and I'm selling this biomethane to a big steel industry that is using my biomethane to decarbonize the process.
Speaker #1
Is it certified? Like, is it a way for the steel industry to also say that they are doing efforts?
Speaker #0
Yeah. First of all, we need to be in compliance with the... Oh, movie deluge. European targets. So you need to be, you need to save at least 80% of the GHG that is compared to the natural gas. So there's a process of certification in which you measure the feedstock, you measure the kind of technology you are using. And at the end, there's a third party certification auditor that comes to you and certificate that your biomethane is in compliance. And then... The industry can use this biomeet, the guarantee origin, which is close with, this is related to my biometan, they can use it to... in their balance, in their balance, in ETS balance.
Speaker #1
Okay. So you operate in Lombardy. For the listeners or the viewers who don't know Lombardy, it's the economic motor of Italy. It's the region where most of the innovation is happening. And there is a lot of, it's traditionally a place where there's a lot of startups. It's the region of Milan as well. So do people in Milan receive... biogas in a way that you produce? Is it going up there? I mean, how does it work in practice? Do you know when your home is being heated with the biogas?
Speaker #0
No, because now at the moment, the biomethane is injected for two sectors, transport and industrial uses. So we don't have domestic use because we are still producing. More or less 1.5 billion cubic meters of biomethane in Italy, which is, you know, it's just enough to, we managed to decarbonize all the natural gas into the vehicles, so the transport sector. And now we are starting with the industrial uses. So at the moment, there's no biomethane that goes to heat, to the heating sector. In the future, you probably will have this. You can have this as well, exactly as you have, for example, for electrical energy. You can buy electrical energy from PV that is installed somewhere else. You just make the balance.
Speaker #1
And it's even on the electricity bill or in the electricity contract, you choose to have green electricity.
Speaker #0
We can have exactly the same.
Speaker #1
That's very interesting. But let's make a step back because when you started with biogas, What was the reaction around you? Did people call you crazy for even trying such a different way of doing things? What was the reaction?
Speaker #0
Okay. So I had to basically, first of all, have a dialogue with my father, let's say like this. So something was, but I'm lucky because my father is an engineer and he's very keen in innovation. So I'm... I mean, I was, for this, I've been very lucky. So every time I was talking about innovation, it was supportive. Then when we started biogas in farming in Italy, no farmers were so interested. So that's why, for example, we decided to found the Consorzio Italiano Biogas, which is the first association, because we found it that we need to stay together. The first mover wanted to make a sort of, let's say, district, because we were facing a new technology. So we had to face with an energy sector, which was not our sector. So we decided something that is not so common in farming to stay together in this association. We started in seven, just farmers. And it was funny, you know, because first time was like going to a group of, you know, all the things, yes, I'm Piero and I'm also producing biogas. But at the end, it was good because that time, if you decided, if you have decided to make a big investment in your farm, with a 15 years, 20 years perspective of, you know, coming back period. You should have like a long vision, even if you, it depends. It's not like this is not like you're young, being young or old. So the first movers was also very, it was the visioners.
Speaker #1
Yeah. I mean, you had to deal with the bureaucracy, to the regulator, to the existing actors who may have seen you like. who are these little guys who want to do something. Also with the banks as well and the local population who must have a job. Yes,
Speaker #0
in the city. And starting from these seven people that were like seven people staying together in the bar. Anyway, seven members at the end. And now we start growing and then we learn from abroad because Germany had already a very... We play a sector very developed and a good association. And we saw that in Germany, industry was inside the association. So we asked industry to come in. And here we are now. We have got more than 900 farmers members of our association. And we have more than 250 industry members of our association. Wow. And that means that we built a system that during these 15 years could provide an important role. And I always think that most of the numbers is the idea that is behind. The idea is that, yes, we can make transition with energy efficiency, first of all, renewable energy. Yes, we can try to be better consumers in farming. You have to be, you can produce locally and that's all true. But we still have a productive agriculture that we can afford to make, in which we can afford to have a transition. if we win this battle We got at least two or three goals. First of all, you got a better food sovereignty. Then you will decrease the emission, but you can always build systems that are carbon negative. So we are one of the first systems in which we are not just emitting less, we can also... restore we can also restore more carbon into the soil and then you can have and this is the concept of our conference you know that is made in europe basically the investment that we are driving to have this transition staying to the close the community yeah yeah stay close to the community because we are not you know some strange found uh that stays in in some island. We are basically, most of us are farmers that, you know, if we can, if we compete more, we grow, we invest more and we get this.
Speaker #1
And it's important that you mention that you're still a farmer because it means that you are still like in contact with your, with the animals, with the people living close to you as well, that you see your products on the markets and you don't forget where you are from, which tends to be I mean, energy tends to be something very abstract, but you make it very, very, very concrete. So do people come to you on a regular basis asking you how it works? Because, yeah, I would love to visit your farm.
Speaker #0
Yes, we are here because we are so that you stay in touring, so we are not so far away. But anyway, yes, and I'm saying that the bioeconomy basically is this. Bioeconomy is not just... to produce a different product. It's another business model.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
And you can't build a business model in my bioeconomy if you don't get this approach. And if you don't lose the contacts with your neighbors, if you're a farmer, if you don't work together, if you don't trade, because it's a completely different model. So, I mean, that's, I decided to come back in the farm and I'm... It's the thing that I still love doing the most. And after 25 years of working in my farm, sometimes it's quite shocking to see how things are changing. And it's very, for me, I'm proud to see that I've been changing this with my father. And now my brother is working with me. So this is something that, you know, is the core of what I'm doing. At the same time, I truly believe that we had an idea which, if it's well developed, can be a game changer.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
We call it, in some way, biographies not right. This means that, yes, this technology is something that's always been there. We are changing the way we are looking at this technology, but we need to be sure that we apply the technology in the right way. Yeah. If the technology is applied in the right way, we can win because we can have energy, renewable energy, we can have fertilizer, we can get biogenic CO2, we can be more resilient in the farming. We can have more independence in Europe as a producing enough to produce energy. So we are working for security as well. So basically all these goals stay together.
Speaker #1
Yeah. And there is also this idea of sufficiency as well, like of not wasting the energy that we have, like making the most out of the resources that we have as well, which is a concept that, again, tends to be overlooked when discussing the big... the big trends and seeing only the big picture, right? Whereas when you understand the efforts that are behind producing this gas and understanding that it has to go towards the places where it's needed for so many reasons, but including like the technological limits we are living in, that makes it also very, very, like such an important. part of this jigsaw puzzle that is the energy transition but what still surprises you or what is one of the questions that come back to you because i came here today with a very open mind and i'm really like positively surprised about what the sector is i find it interesting challenging yeah it kind of challenged my my conception about the the energy sector so i like it i like your challenge. I like my curiosity to be stimulated. Maybe there are some questions or concerns that people ask you whenever you have the opportunity to present your farm or present your work that could be worth sharing today.
Speaker #0
Yes, I think the first question that sometimes still amazes me is that, oh, but you're using crops to produce energy, you know. And this idea that from crops or anyway from agriculture, you should produce just food. It's something that we can't afford to have now because we had for 15 years fossil fuels. Because before the, you know, the Swiss, the Swiss, you know, the Hoppen, basically in a farm, you had to produce everything. You have to produce fiber, you have to produce feed, you have to produce food, you have to produce energy. When there was no machinery, 50% of... The growth of the crops were given to people that were working in the field. So basically, this was the energy.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were using the affordable.
Speaker #0
So basically, now we are a little bit more, you know, saying that, oh, so you need to produce food. I think this is not true. From the land, if we want to make the transition, we need to have enough carbon. To produce food, energy and materials. That is the true, that is something that I wanted to, I mean, it's going to challenge me.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
How can you increase the dry matter that you produce for a nectar? How can you produce more with less? Because this is circular economy. Circular economy is not just producing less. That is just a bad economy. Circular economy is that You know, what we are trying to do is I'm increasing my rotation and increasing my production without using organic fertilizing produced from digested without using chemical fertilizing. This is actually for our economy.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So I believe there's some ideas that are, you know, well established in our, is coming from the models we are basically used to have.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
And it's difficult to change. There's a cultural reason, but also there's a reason that is cost. I was saying today, if you take driving in the airport, you know, to have the complete transition, you need to move huge investment.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So the idea is that we need to have, when people come to me, I always say, okay, this is my, I'm trying to do my bit. on the other side as a farmer I know that there's no just one solution. So I'm investing in photovoltaic as well. I'm investing to get a better irrigation with drip system. I'm investing in precision farming. So I'm investing in like efficiency. So you have to have all those things open to, and this, as I was saying, It's not just.
Speaker #1
ecological is also a long-term vision economics yeah and if you had a message to send to policymakers now yes uh the conference today talked a lot about the need for perhaps a european market for for biomethane or something is it if i'm correct so if you had one mess or a few messages you would like to to send them what would they be yes
Speaker #0
i've been working with this for some Sometimes I can say that for me, it's very important. I mean, that we need to drive the force on some goals and to keep it for at least a medium long term period. So we are making all this debate on the cap policy, which is I can understand is important. But at the same time, I think it's very important to see which. culture we want in Europe for the next 20 years. So take the money, put in some dedicated measure and invest in them for a long period that industry can provide to be ready. Farmers know that they can have a long term return. And that is very important because what we are facing doesn't fit with... policy that have not long-term vision.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, because you're making investment and I mean nature has its ways as well like you can't go against the season so you must follow this way.
Speaker #0
You know because we are also you know the agriculture is especially the herds are always been you know inside the one of the problems of the ecology transition and we say that they are one of the answer. So if you look at the other way, so I think we need to work together. You can't have an answer and you can't make a proposal that is good for your sector. That's why it was here good to present to the commissioner the report we have done for industrial uses, because it's not just farming that can produce biomethane. It's also all the outdoor-based sector. Yeah. That means people that are working in the industry in Europe that have to face with the decarbonization. Yeah. And they have to face also with the competitive of energy because most of those industries have got 60, 70% of their cost in energy.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker #0
And we can, okay, as a farmer, we can go away with our production, but, you know, industry can take it and close and go somewhere else. But yeah. And so that is the topic that is about Green Deal. Green, we all agree that green, but the deal. We need to make a deal with the productive, with the sector, with the people that is on the field of production every day.
Speaker #1
And if you had some messages to send to young farmers or young in the sense of people who... are considering farming or are starting with their family exploitation or something and would like to start with biogas or all the work that you have made and you have paved the way for them to do, what would that be? Or maybe to your younger self, right?
Speaker #0
Yeah, this is a problem with me. I've always tried to, sometimes I have to be, my father said you need to be quiet but let's say in In our association, we founded, with CHIP, we founded a foundation which calls Farming for Future. If you want to go and see the website, basically are 10 actions that farmers can make to drive the transition. Which is obviously anaerobic digestion is one of them, but it's not all of them. So my suggestion is, first of all, to try to have this holistic approach. in which you don't get, you know, what you have as guaranteed. And in our sector, sometimes this is the problem because, you know, it's always been done like this. If you are a farmer, everybody will tell you in the farm, your father, the people working. But why have we always been doing like this?
Speaker #1
Yeah, but the tractor, it wasn't running with diesel 100 years ago. Yes.
Speaker #0
And it changed. Yes, but you have to understand that, you know, to To change things, you need to make an effort and prove it. And the change goes with the rhythm of the season. So you have to wait six months to get the result. And so the idea is to have this holistic approach. And so the foundation is basically where young farmers in our association can work to implement this project. So this is something important. I'm with them as well because I'm still... But anyway, have this holistic approach and don't be scared or make some mistake. Because, you know, if you make some mistakes, you learn. In farming, it's difficult because, as I said, timing is different. But still, you need to make things change if you want to learn something. And then I should say, now that... There are so many technology coming in. Try to have people working with you that are good. It's difficult, but you can find. And I think also in a farm, you can have a good team of people working with you and give you the knowledge. And we will have even more knowledge, young people coming in our farm because we've got such a technology revolution coming in that is amazing.
Speaker #1
That's great. And that's great to hear. And I will tell you an anecdote. A few years ago, I was working in Burkina Faso, and I met an amazing young woman who was working on biogas in Burkina Faso. And she was saying that she was absolutely passionate about the subject. But still, there was a kind of a taboo around biogas because it was about working with manure in a society that expects women to also cook and take care of the children, etc. But now you say that, you know, there's a lot of technology, so maybe you don't need to put your hands as dirty as in all contexts all the time. So maybe that's a different way to attract people's eyes as well.
Speaker #0
Let's say that you still have to do something like this. In a sense, it's also the good part.
Speaker #1
Okay.
Speaker #0
Because I think, I mean, that's probably because I'm like this. I mean, I wouldn't... I couldn't work just to move numbers and move things. And that's why I like farming because I move things instead of numbers. But I still believe that, especially in Italy, in this sector, we got two of the excellence of the made in Italy, which is the agro-industry sector and the gas sector. that's I think one also one thing why we could find so a positive environment to develop this model and this business because Italy has been working with gas sector from everywhere when I was going to Germany 15-20 years ago looking at the biogas plant yes they were in Germany but if you were going to see where the pumps comes from where the compressor comes from They were coming from Forlì, coming from Bologna. So this is because we have got this know-how. And that's why it's so exciting to put those two things together.
Speaker #1
That's really super interesting, super inspiring. How really tradition and modernity and the future can really cohabit together for secularity, for sustainability and to truly deliver a deal that is green. And that is made really for everyone. Thank you so much, Pierre.
Speaker #0
Thank you.
Speaker #1
Energetic explores the people, policies and institutions shaping Europe's and the world's energy transition. I am Marine Cornelis. If you found this conversation valuable, you can share it with colleagues working on housing, governance and consumer protection. You will find references and further reading in the show notes. Until next time.

About Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

Energ'Ethic asks the question most energy debates skip: who the transition is for. Hosted by Marine Cornelis, founder of Next Energy Consumer, each episode moves between frontline reality and the rooms where European energy policy is decided. The conversations follow one thread through energy, housing, digitalisation, and finance: whether the systems being built earn people's trust and improve their lives. For listeners, it offers a grounded guide to a transition too often told only in megawatts and money. For anyone weighing a collaboration, it shows how Next Energy Consumer reads the field.

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About Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Description

We discuss:

Why a dairy farm with tight margins turned to energy as a second market
How digestate returns organic matter to the soil and replaces chemical fertiliser
Why food, feed and energy can share the same land
Where Italian biomethane goes today, and why it does not yet reach household heating
Why the first farmers to invest had to organise together
What long-term policy would mean for farmers and industry alike

A conversation about whose land, knowledge and trust the transition relies on, and who it still overlooks.

Energ' Ethic goes out every other week.

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Reach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedIn
Music: I Need You Here - Kamarius
Edition: Podcast Media Factory

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Transcription

Speaker #0
If you don't use the soil, which is the best place how to stock carbon, if you don't change the way we are farming, we will never get the result that we need. And this is clearly written in every EPPC report and everything. We not just have to mitigate, we also have to capture.
Speaker #1
When we picture the energy transition, usually we picture it from Cities, from rooftop solar, from heat pumps, electric cars, households comparing their bills. We talk a lot about electrification, of course, and it's fair. It's, of course, so much lighter on CO2 emissions. But farms and rural communities, they tend to be kind of overlooked. Biogas sits exactly... at that in in this blind spot before preparing this episode i must say i was completely ignorant of the sector and i mostly associated with the waste and with the debate on cattle emissions and i suspect many of my listeners do too so that gap I'm saying an understanding. I think it matters as well, because that's also why I accepted with great pleasure the invitation from the European Biogas Association to join them at this European Biomethan Week. And I think it's really important to have this discussion because I really think, of course, you know me now that trust, public trust really shapes the world we live in. And decisions must be made in a way that embrace the variety of the population in the territories we are living in. And also where and how biomethan is made, how it should go, etc. My guest today is Piero Gastoni. Welcome, Piero. Piero is a farmer and a livestock breeder from Lombardia in northern Italy. He's the president of the Consorzio Italiano Biogas. And since 2025, you're also the president of the European Biogas Association. So he speaks from the farm. Well, actually from the European Biomethan Conference today. But he speaks as a farmer and as, you know, someone who knows the sector from the inside. So I think... You're probably the best person to talk about this topic and really help us understand why it is so strategically important for European lifestyle, for European safety of supply, but also in terms of how the biogas industry plays a key role in our sustainable future. So, Piero, maybe you could tell us a little bit about your story. Why biogas? What got you hooked?
Speaker #0
Why biogas? So first of all, after my study, I decided to come back and run my family farms. You know, as you said, it's a mixed farming in the north part of Italy, in the Po Valley. So we produce, we go cows and I heard of cows and we produce animal feed like, you know, forage and cereal. and this was a very the kind of farm that I've been, you know, I've been facing when I first started working with my father. By that time was early 2000, you know, the economics of the farm was quite tight and also because I could understand that I was producing a lot for producer commodities, mostly, you know, milk is a commodity and so I didn't have this, I couldn't find the way I could develop. the farm. So I started looking at energy as a potential other market. And I thought this was interesting. And by that time was the 2020 target period for European. So basically, European was pushing to produce a little more renewable energy. Okay, so the transition was not so inside the topic still, but we could see that Europe was starting to push to have renewable energy and biomass was one of those. So I start. Going around Europe, I went to Germany, Austria, Sweden to see different kind of production from different kind of production and I found the biogas technology the right one to complete my farm because I did have a hearth through anaerobic digestion which is basically like having a big, you know, something big, a big circle in which you put inside manure. You put inside byproducts and organic matter that's during fermentation produce biogas that go to a CHP, to a motor, to a CHP to produce energy, electrical energy. So that's kind of technology, the oldest technology you can have because it's something that bacteria can produce this biogas. I could get value for something that was lost. So that was the start. I look around and I found that anaerobic digestion was the right technology to fit in my farm.
Speaker #1
That's interesting that you say taking value for something that would be lost, because it's not only monetary value, it's also a product that comes from the animals, comes from the residues. And as a farmer... you had to dispose of this product. So it had a cost also for you, probably, too. Yes. And you needed to understand a little bit better what to do with that cost.
Speaker #0
Yes. By that time, you know, there was a support scheme to produce biogas in Italy. And the support scheme was pretty open. You didn't have to use byproduct or manure, but you could also use crops to produce biogas. you That was exactly why from the beginning I found that to be in my farm to get energy, I didn't have to change the core business. But I did have to develop energy inside the core business. So that's why I found very interesting to get value from the manure and value from... different byproducts that, you know, agri-industry is producing close to me. And that's why I start restarting having a different model, technology model, with something that in agriculture it's always been doing. Because you said something in the beginning, you know, farms are for most part of the opinion of the people outside the transition.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
Mike Farming is the core of the transition. Because what is the transition? Transition is basically to work on the CO2 balance. Because for many years, we've been using CO2 that has been stocking inside the soil for centuries. And we've been burned soon to get the development of the industrial period. talk. If we want to restore this balance, yes, you need to mitigate the GHG and you have to mitigate through producing renewable energy through solar and wind.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So through solar and wind, you mitigate. But if you don't get inside the photosynthesis period, if you don't use the soil, which is the best place how to stock carbon. If you don't change the way we are farming, we will never get the result that we need. And this is clearly written in every EPPC report and everything. We not just have to mitigate, we also have to capture. And my farm, what it has done in the last 15 years, through our technology, we just concentred the... biomass is inside the digester. We produce energy, electrical renewable energy, and through digested, which is the byproduct after the anaerobic digestion, which is not burning. It's just digesting. So after all, the organic matter comes out through digested, which is an organic fertilizer. I restarting going organic matter to the soil. And having this, I could also increase a lot the rotation of my farm that in the past was probably 5% of the field. Now it's more than 50% of the field. So I get all the arable land covered all year round because we seed a winter crop and then a spring crop. So we make two crops from the same field. And so I get more carbon. I get more photosynthesis. And I can use the same land. to feed the cows and to produce energy. This is the concept. And I think this is the concept why that helped to, that's why biogas and biomethane can easily go through the debate of, you know, the debate of producing food, feed or energy. That was the first generation by four problems, you know, because you were using the land not to produce food. But to produce ends, so this was just displacing carbon to one market to another. We are keep producing our cheese, we are keep producing our meat, we are keep producing our products, and we are using the organic fertilizer, so reducing chemical fertilizer, and we are getting a better, so we are not just farming in a more sustainable way. we are also more competitive in the market.
Speaker #1
No, that's interesting because you completely overhaul the idea of extraction, like extracting from nature. It's really more like working with nature and making sure you feed it, you respect it, you give it back. And that's a complete, I mean, that's fascinating to see how sustainable it is. It's like the essence of sustainability, right? And very often... In the energy transition discourse, we also hear that places are competing. There is competition for land, like, as you said, for agriculture, for cattle's agriculture, like growing cereals or legumes for people and producing energy. And there was also recently some debates over electrical, like solar panels over farms, etc. Whereas you say, but there is also one element you haven't considered, which is biogas. which combines them all. And why is not everyone doing just like you do?
Speaker #0
Because, okay, so first of all, it's not easy and you need investment. I believe the ecological transition could be also that economic transition. And that is simple. I'm talking as a farmer. When you do an ecological choice... Most of the time you do also an economic choice.
Speaker #1
I mean, best.
Speaker #0
Okay. My tractors goes with precision farming, you know, with the satellites on precision farming. So I just measure. That means that when we work the land, if you don't have satellites, precision farming, you always end up working also a part of the land twice because you have to stay. On the safeguard, you know. And if you add the small part for farm, which is big, that's another farm.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So that means that once you get technology, you can grow in a more competitive way. So the idea that people have that transition is not economical is not true, especially in farming. It's just that you need investment. That's why it was so important for us to invest also in energy, because that gave us another market to help the up and down of the food market. It's not stable. And at the same time, it gave us the digested, which is so important for recover. fertilize the soil, restoring also the organic matter.
Speaker #1
And that's very, very interesting what you say, because earlier today we heard Commissioner Jorgensen talk about the 2022 crisis when Russia invaded Ukraine. And as at the time he was Minister for Energy and he was thinking that maybe he had to make some choices to cut the supply of some places. But he's from Denmark and biogas is quite popular. So it acted as some kind of guarantee or as a buffer that there would still be some gas in the system to... For instance, heat hospitals or schools and not leave people cold. Right now, what is interesting is that we are facing another gas crisis, another energy crisis, or maybe it's the continuation of the previous ones. But since a few months, there has been immense discussion and you can really see that policymakers are stressed over the fertilizers that they can't travel via the Strait of Hormuz. Or now there are these discussions with American gas or Russian gas and prices are extremely high. The biogas is still a fraction of what the European Union use, right? It's around 7%. Yes,
Speaker #0
it's still very low and very under, still very under on the target we have by 2030. So we need to push. Because it definitely could be an answer.
Speaker #1
And that's why I also find today's angle for the conference today was around the security. Because there are still sectors where it's just not possible to electrify. It demands too much energy. Your recent reports mention ceramics, for instance, or some places like that. So you just mentioned that you are under the current target, but you are going in a certain direction as well. Can you? Explain to us a little bit more the context around biogas and why it seems so important that the commissioner is coming today.
Speaker #0
Yes, but so let's go back to my, for one moment, my experience. So I started 15 years ago producing biogas and electrical and thermal energy through CHP.
Speaker #1
And that's heat and power.
Speaker #0
Heat and power. It was the first... Then we, I, and we started thinking that probably producing electrical energy through biogas could be not exactly the best choice for the future. Why? Because in the future, if you want to have electrical energy, you can have from solar and wind. You can program this energy, it's true. Biogas, you can program if you want. But still, you know, you need to get. to feed the plant. So you will have a cost that otherwise it's not. So the idea is that for me, from the beginning, when I saw this plant, I thought, oh, this is very important. I can't see my farm without anaerobic digestion. So we need, in our association, with the help of the industries, we need to start thinking also how to produce biomethane. Biomethane is just... 55% of the biogas.
Speaker #1
Okay.
Speaker #0
Because the other 45% basically is CO2, biogenic CO2. Okay. So there it is. Okay, we are producing biogas. This biogas can produce energy. But if we can upgrade the biogas into biomethane and compress the biomethane into natural gas grid, we can have a different kind of energy, which is stockable and we can use seasonable as well. And? that can be used from the hardwood-based sector industry, which they don't have any other option to decarbonize. So in 2022, I started a new project from my plant, and I built, I just upgraded the plant to produce biomethane. So I upgraded the plant, and I'm producing instead of electrical energy, Now I'm producing biomethane. I'm injecting biomethane in the transport distribution grid and I'm selling this biomethane to a big steel industry that is using my biomethane to decarbonize the process.
Speaker #1
Is it certified? Like, is it a way for the steel industry to also say that they are doing efforts?
Speaker #0
Yeah. First of all, we need to be in compliance with the... Oh, movie deluge. European targets. So you need to be, you need to save at least 80% of the GHG that is compared to the natural gas. So there's a process of certification in which you measure the feedstock, you measure the kind of technology you are using. And at the end, there's a third party certification auditor that comes to you and certificate that your biomethane is in compliance. And then... The industry can use this biomeet, the guarantee origin, which is close with, this is related to my biometan, they can use it to... in their balance, in their balance, in ETS balance.
Speaker #1
Okay. So you operate in Lombardy. For the listeners or the viewers who don't know Lombardy, it's the economic motor of Italy. It's the region where most of the innovation is happening. And there is a lot of, it's traditionally a place where there's a lot of startups. It's the region of Milan as well. So do people in Milan receive... biogas in a way that you produce? Is it going up there? I mean, how does it work in practice? Do you know when your home is being heated with the biogas?
Speaker #0
No, because now at the moment, the biomethane is injected for two sectors, transport and industrial uses. So we don't have domestic use because we are still producing. More or less 1.5 billion cubic meters of biomethane in Italy, which is, you know, it's just enough to, we managed to decarbonize all the natural gas into the vehicles, so the transport sector. And now we are starting with the industrial uses. So at the moment, there's no biomethane that goes to heat, to the heating sector. In the future, you probably will have this. You can have this as well, exactly as you have, for example, for electrical energy. You can buy electrical energy from PV that is installed somewhere else. You just make the balance.
Speaker #1
And it's even on the electricity bill or in the electricity contract, you choose to have green electricity.
Speaker #0
We can have exactly the same.
Speaker #1
That's very interesting. But let's make a step back because when you started with biogas, What was the reaction around you? Did people call you crazy for even trying such a different way of doing things? What was the reaction?
Speaker #0
Okay. So I had to basically, first of all, have a dialogue with my father, let's say like this. So something was, but I'm lucky because my father is an engineer and he's very keen in innovation. So I'm... I mean, I was, for this, I've been very lucky. So every time I was talking about innovation, it was supportive. Then when we started biogas in farming in Italy, no farmers were so interested. So that's why, for example, we decided to found the Consorzio Italiano Biogas, which is the first association, because we found it that we need to stay together. The first mover wanted to make a sort of, let's say, district, because we were facing a new technology. So we had to face with an energy sector, which was not our sector. So we decided something that is not so common in farming to stay together in this association. We started in seven, just farmers. And it was funny, you know, because first time was like going to a group of, you know, all the things, yes, I'm Piero and I'm also producing biogas. But at the end, it was good because that time, if you decided, if you have decided to make a big investment in your farm, with a 15 years, 20 years perspective of, you know, coming back period. You should have like a long vision, even if you, it depends. It's not like this is not like you're young, being young or old. So the first movers was also very, it was the visioners.
Speaker #1
Yeah. I mean, you had to deal with the bureaucracy, to the regulator, to the existing actors who may have seen you like. who are these little guys who want to do something. Also with the banks as well and the local population who must have a job. Yes,
Speaker #0
in the city. And starting from these seven people that were like seven people staying together in the bar. Anyway, seven members at the end. And now we start growing and then we learn from abroad because Germany had already a very... We play a sector very developed and a good association. And we saw that in Germany, industry was inside the association. So we asked industry to come in. And here we are now. We have got more than 900 farmers members of our association. And we have more than 250 industry members of our association. Wow. And that means that we built a system that during these 15 years could provide an important role. And I always think that most of the numbers is the idea that is behind. The idea is that, yes, we can make transition with energy efficiency, first of all, renewable energy. Yes, we can try to be better consumers in farming. You have to be, you can produce locally and that's all true. But we still have a productive agriculture that we can afford to make, in which we can afford to have a transition. if we win this battle We got at least two or three goals. First of all, you got a better food sovereignty. Then you will decrease the emission, but you can always build systems that are carbon negative. So we are one of the first systems in which we are not just emitting less, we can also... restore we can also restore more carbon into the soil and then you can have and this is the concept of our conference you know that is made in europe basically the investment that we are driving to have this transition staying to the close the community yeah yeah stay close to the community because we are not you know some strange found uh that stays in in some island. We are basically, most of us are farmers that, you know, if we can, if we compete more, we grow, we invest more and we get this.
Speaker #1
And it's important that you mention that you're still a farmer because it means that you are still like in contact with your, with the animals, with the people living close to you as well, that you see your products on the markets and you don't forget where you are from, which tends to be I mean, energy tends to be something very abstract, but you make it very, very, very concrete. So do people come to you on a regular basis asking you how it works? Because, yeah, I would love to visit your farm.
Speaker #0
Yes, we are here because we are so that you stay in touring, so we are not so far away. But anyway, yes, and I'm saying that the bioeconomy basically is this. Bioeconomy is not just... to produce a different product. It's another business model.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
And you can't build a business model in my bioeconomy if you don't get this approach. And if you don't lose the contacts with your neighbors, if you're a farmer, if you don't work together, if you don't trade, because it's a completely different model. So, I mean, that's, I decided to come back in the farm and I'm... It's the thing that I still love doing the most. And after 25 years of working in my farm, sometimes it's quite shocking to see how things are changing. And it's very, for me, I'm proud to see that I've been changing this with my father. And now my brother is working with me. So this is something that, you know, is the core of what I'm doing. At the same time, I truly believe that we had an idea which, if it's well developed, can be a game changer.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
We call it, in some way, biographies not right. This means that, yes, this technology is something that's always been there. We are changing the way we are looking at this technology, but we need to be sure that we apply the technology in the right way. Yeah. If the technology is applied in the right way, we can win because we can have energy, renewable energy, we can have fertilizer, we can get biogenic CO2, we can be more resilient in the farming. We can have more independence in Europe as a producing enough to produce energy. So we are working for security as well. So basically all these goals stay together.
Speaker #1
Yeah. And there is also this idea of sufficiency as well, like of not wasting the energy that we have, like making the most out of the resources that we have as well, which is a concept that, again, tends to be overlooked when discussing the big... the big trends and seeing only the big picture, right? Whereas when you understand the efforts that are behind producing this gas and understanding that it has to go towards the places where it's needed for so many reasons, but including like the technological limits we are living in, that makes it also very, very, like such an important. part of this jigsaw puzzle that is the energy transition but what still surprises you or what is one of the questions that come back to you because i came here today with a very open mind and i'm really like positively surprised about what the sector is i find it interesting challenging yeah it kind of challenged my my conception about the the energy sector so i like it i like your challenge. I like my curiosity to be stimulated. Maybe there are some questions or concerns that people ask you whenever you have the opportunity to present your farm or present your work that could be worth sharing today.
Speaker #0
Yes, I think the first question that sometimes still amazes me is that, oh, but you're using crops to produce energy, you know. And this idea that from crops or anyway from agriculture, you should produce just food. It's something that we can't afford to have now because we had for 15 years fossil fuels. Because before the, you know, the Swiss, the Swiss, you know, the Hoppen, basically in a farm, you had to produce everything. You have to produce fiber, you have to produce feed, you have to produce food, you have to produce energy. When there was no machinery, 50% of... The growth of the crops were given to people that were working in the field. So basically, this was the energy.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were using the affordable.
Speaker #0
So basically, now we are a little bit more, you know, saying that, oh, so you need to produce food. I think this is not true. From the land, if we want to make the transition, we need to have enough carbon. To produce food, energy and materials. That is the true, that is something that I wanted to, I mean, it's going to challenge me.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
How can you increase the dry matter that you produce for a nectar? How can you produce more with less? Because this is circular economy. Circular economy is not just producing less. That is just a bad economy. Circular economy is that You know, what we are trying to do is I'm increasing my rotation and increasing my production without using organic fertilizing produced from digested without using chemical fertilizing. This is actually for our economy.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So I believe there's some ideas that are, you know, well established in our, is coming from the models we are basically used to have.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
And it's difficult to change. There's a cultural reason, but also there's a reason that is cost. I was saying today, if you take driving in the airport, you know, to have the complete transition, you need to move huge investment.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So the idea is that we need to have, when people come to me, I always say, okay, this is my, I'm trying to do my bit. on the other side as a farmer I know that there's no just one solution. So I'm investing in photovoltaic as well. I'm investing to get a better irrigation with drip system. I'm investing in precision farming. So I'm investing in like efficiency. So you have to have all those things open to, and this, as I was saying, It's not just.
Speaker #1
ecological is also a long-term vision economics yeah and if you had a message to send to policymakers now yes uh the conference today talked a lot about the need for perhaps a european market for for biomethane or something is it if i'm correct so if you had one mess or a few messages you would like to to send them what would they be yes
Speaker #0
i've been working with this for some Sometimes I can say that for me, it's very important. I mean, that we need to drive the force on some goals and to keep it for at least a medium long term period. So we are making all this debate on the cap policy, which is I can understand is important. But at the same time, I think it's very important to see which. culture we want in Europe for the next 20 years. So take the money, put in some dedicated measure and invest in them for a long period that industry can provide to be ready. Farmers know that they can have a long term return. And that is very important because what we are facing doesn't fit with... policy that have not long-term vision.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, because you're making investment and I mean nature has its ways as well like you can't go against the season so you must follow this way.
Speaker #0
You know because we are also you know the agriculture is especially the herds are always been you know inside the one of the problems of the ecology transition and we say that they are one of the answer. So if you look at the other way, so I think we need to work together. You can't have an answer and you can't make a proposal that is good for your sector. That's why it was here good to present to the commissioner the report we have done for industrial uses, because it's not just farming that can produce biomethane. It's also all the outdoor-based sector. Yeah. That means people that are working in the industry in Europe that have to face with the decarbonization. Yeah. And they have to face also with the competitive of energy because most of those industries have got 60, 70% of their cost in energy.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker #0
And we can, okay, as a farmer, we can go away with our production, but, you know, industry can take it and close and go somewhere else. But yeah. And so that is the topic that is about Green Deal. Green, we all agree that green, but the deal. We need to make a deal with the productive, with the sector, with the people that is on the field of production every day.
Speaker #1
And if you had some messages to send to young farmers or young in the sense of people who... are considering farming or are starting with their family exploitation or something and would like to start with biogas or all the work that you have made and you have paved the way for them to do, what would that be? Or maybe to your younger self, right?
Speaker #0
Yeah, this is a problem with me. I've always tried to, sometimes I have to be, my father said you need to be quiet but let's say in In our association, we founded, with CHIP, we founded a foundation which calls Farming for Future. If you want to go and see the website, basically are 10 actions that farmers can make to drive the transition. Which is obviously anaerobic digestion is one of them, but it's not all of them. So my suggestion is, first of all, to try to have this holistic approach. in which you don't get, you know, what you have as guaranteed. And in our sector, sometimes this is the problem because, you know, it's always been done like this. If you are a farmer, everybody will tell you in the farm, your father, the people working. But why have we always been doing like this?
Speaker #1
Yeah, but the tractor, it wasn't running with diesel 100 years ago. Yes.
Speaker #0
And it changed. Yes, but you have to understand that, you know, to To change things, you need to make an effort and prove it. And the change goes with the rhythm of the season. So you have to wait six months to get the result. And so the idea is to have this holistic approach. And so the foundation is basically where young farmers in our association can work to implement this project. So this is something important. I'm with them as well because I'm still... But anyway, have this holistic approach and don't be scared or make some mistake. Because, you know, if you make some mistakes, you learn. In farming, it's difficult because, as I said, timing is different. But still, you need to make things change if you want to learn something. And then I should say, now that... There are so many technology coming in. Try to have people working with you that are good. It's difficult, but you can find. And I think also in a farm, you can have a good team of people working with you and give you the knowledge. And we will have even more knowledge, young people coming in our farm because we've got such a technology revolution coming in that is amazing.
Speaker #1
That's great. And that's great to hear. And I will tell you an anecdote. A few years ago, I was working in Burkina Faso, and I met an amazing young woman who was working on biogas in Burkina Faso. And she was saying that she was absolutely passionate about the subject. But still, there was a kind of a taboo around biogas because it was about working with manure in a society that expects women to also cook and take care of the children, etc. But now you say that, you know, there's a lot of technology, so maybe you don't need to put your hands as dirty as in all contexts all the time. So maybe that's a different way to attract people's eyes as well.
Speaker #0
Let's say that you still have to do something like this. In a sense, it's also the good part.
Speaker #1
Okay.
Speaker #0
Because I think, I mean, that's probably because I'm like this. I mean, I wouldn't... I couldn't work just to move numbers and move things. And that's why I like farming because I move things instead of numbers. But I still believe that, especially in Italy, in this sector, we got two of the excellence of the made in Italy, which is the agro-industry sector and the gas sector. that's I think one also one thing why we could find so a positive environment to develop this model and this business because Italy has been working with gas sector from everywhere when I was going to Germany 15-20 years ago looking at the biogas plant yes they were in Germany but if you were going to see where the pumps comes from where the compressor comes from They were coming from Forlì, coming from Bologna. So this is because we have got this know-how. And that's why it's so exciting to put those two things together.
Speaker #1
That's really super interesting, super inspiring. How really tradition and modernity and the future can really cohabit together for secularity, for sustainability and to truly deliver a deal that is green. And that is made really for everyone. Thank you so much, Pierre.
Speaker #0
Thank you.
Speaker #1
Energetic explores the people, policies and institutions shaping Europe's and the world's energy transition. I am Marine Cornelis. If you found this conversation valuable, you can share it with colleagues working on housing, governance and consumer protection. You will find references and further reading in the show notes. Until next time.

About Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

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About Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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We discuss:

Why a dairy farm with tight margins turned to energy as a second market
How digestate returns organic matter to the soil and replaces chemical fertiliser
Why food, feed and energy can share the same land
Where Italian biomethane goes today, and why it does not yet reach household heating
Why the first farmers to invest had to organise together
What long-term policy would mean for farmers and industry alike

A conversation about whose land, knowledge and trust the transition relies on, and who it still overlooks.

Energ' Ethic goes out every other week.

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Reach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedIn
Music: I Need You Here - Kamarius
Edition: Podcast Media Factory

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Transcription

Speaker #0
If you don't use the soil, which is the best place how to stock carbon, if you don't change the way we are farming, we will never get the result that we need. And this is clearly written in every EPPC report and everything. We not just have to mitigate, we also have to capture.
Speaker #1
When we picture the energy transition, usually we picture it from Cities, from rooftop solar, from heat pumps, electric cars, households comparing their bills. We talk a lot about electrification, of course, and it's fair. It's, of course, so much lighter on CO2 emissions. But farms and rural communities, they tend to be kind of overlooked. Biogas sits exactly... at that in in this blind spot before preparing this episode i must say i was completely ignorant of the sector and i mostly associated with the waste and with the debate on cattle emissions and i suspect many of my listeners do too so that gap I'm saying an understanding. I think it matters as well, because that's also why I accepted with great pleasure the invitation from the European Biogas Association to join them at this European Biomethan Week. And I think it's really important to have this discussion because I really think, of course, you know me now that trust, public trust really shapes the world we live in. And decisions must be made in a way that embrace the variety of the population in the territories we are living in. And also where and how biomethan is made, how it should go, etc. My guest today is Piero Gastoni. Welcome, Piero. Piero is a farmer and a livestock breeder from Lombardia in northern Italy. He's the president of the Consorzio Italiano Biogas. And since 2025, you're also the president of the European Biogas Association. So he speaks from the farm. Well, actually from the European Biomethan Conference today. But he speaks as a farmer and as, you know, someone who knows the sector from the inside. So I think... You're probably the best person to talk about this topic and really help us understand why it is so strategically important for European lifestyle, for European safety of supply, but also in terms of how the biogas industry plays a key role in our sustainable future. So, Piero, maybe you could tell us a little bit about your story. Why biogas? What got you hooked?
Speaker #0
Why biogas? So first of all, after my study, I decided to come back and run my family farms. You know, as you said, it's a mixed farming in the north part of Italy, in the Po Valley. So we produce, we go cows and I heard of cows and we produce animal feed like, you know, forage and cereal. and this was a very the kind of farm that I've been, you know, I've been facing when I first started working with my father. By that time was early 2000, you know, the economics of the farm was quite tight and also because I could understand that I was producing a lot for producer commodities, mostly, you know, milk is a commodity and so I didn't have this, I couldn't find the way I could develop. the farm. So I started looking at energy as a potential other market. And I thought this was interesting. And by that time was the 2020 target period for European. So basically, European was pushing to produce a little more renewable energy. Okay, so the transition was not so inside the topic still, but we could see that Europe was starting to push to have renewable energy and biomass was one of those. So I start. Going around Europe, I went to Germany, Austria, Sweden to see different kind of production from different kind of production and I found the biogas technology the right one to complete my farm because I did have a hearth through anaerobic digestion which is basically like having a big, you know, something big, a big circle in which you put inside manure. You put inside byproducts and organic matter that's during fermentation produce biogas that go to a CHP, to a motor, to a CHP to produce energy, electrical energy. So that's kind of technology, the oldest technology you can have because it's something that bacteria can produce this biogas. I could get value for something that was lost. So that was the start. I look around and I found that anaerobic digestion was the right technology to fit in my farm.
Speaker #1
That's interesting that you say taking value for something that would be lost, because it's not only monetary value, it's also a product that comes from the animals, comes from the residues. And as a farmer... you had to dispose of this product. So it had a cost also for you, probably, too. Yes. And you needed to understand a little bit better what to do with that cost.
Speaker #0
Yes. By that time, you know, there was a support scheme to produce biogas in Italy. And the support scheme was pretty open. You didn't have to use byproduct or manure, but you could also use crops to produce biogas. you That was exactly why from the beginning I found that to be in my farm to get energy, I didn't have to change the core business. But I did have to develop energy inside the core business. So that's why I found very interesting to get value from the manure and value from... different byproducts that, you know, agri-industry is producing close to me. And that's why I start restarting having a different model, technology model, with something that in agriculture it's always been doing. Because you said something in the beginning, you know, farms are for most part of the opinion of the people outside the transition.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
Mike Farming is the core of the transition. Because what is the transition? Transition is basically to work on the CO2 balance. Because for many years, we've been using CO2 that has been stocking inside the soil for centuries. And we've been burned soon to get the development of the industrial period. talk. If we want to restore this balance, yes, you need to mitigate the GHG and you have to mitigate through producing renewable energy through solar and wind.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So through solar and wind, you mitigate. But if you don't get inside the photosynthesis period, if you don't use the soil, which is the best place how to stock carbon. If you don't change the way we are farming, we will never get the result that we need. And this is clearly written in every EPPC report and everything. We not just have to mitigate, we also have to capture. And my farm, what it has done in the last 15 years, through our technology, we just concentred the... biomass is inside the digester. We produce energy, electrical renewable energy, and through digested, which is the byproduct after the anaerobic digestion, which is not burning. It's just digesting. So after all, the organic matter comes out through digested, which is an organic fertilizer. I restarting going organic matter to the soil. And having this, I could also increase a lot the rotation of my farm that in the past was probably 5% of the field. Now it's more than 50% of the field. So I get all the arable land covered all year round because we seed a winter crop and then a spring crop. So we make two crops from the same field. And so I get more carbon. I get more photosynthesis. And I can use the same land. to feed the cows and to produce energy. This is the concept. And I think this is the concept why that helped to, that's why biogas and biomethane can easily go through the debate of, you know, the debate of producing food, feed or energy. That was the first generation by four problems, you know, because you were using the land not to produce food. But to produce ends, so this was just displacing carbon to one market to another. We are keep producing our cheese, we are keep producing our meat, we are keep producing our products, and we are using the organic fertilizer, so reducing chemical fertilizer, and we are getting a better, so we are not just farming in a more sustainable way. we are also more competitive in the market.
Speaker #1
No, that's interesting because you completely overhaul the idea of extraction, like extracting from nature. It's really more like working with nature and making sure you feed it, you respect it, you give it back. And that's a complete, I mean, that's fascinating to see how sustainable it is. It's like the essence of sustainability, right? And very often... In the energy transition discourse, we also hear that places are competing. There is competition for land, like, as you said, for agriculture, for cattle's agriculture, like growing cereals or legumes for people and producing energy. And there was also recently some debates over electrical, like solar panels over farms, etc. Whereas you say, but there is also one element you haven't considered, which is biogas. which combines them all. And why is not everyone doing just like you do?
Speaker #0
Because, okay, so first of all, it's not easy and you need investment. I believe the ecological transition could be also that economic transition. And that is simple. I'm talking as a farmer. When you do an ecological choice... Most of the time you do also an economic choice.
Speaker #1
I mean, best.
Speaker #0
Okay. My tractors goes with precision farming, you know, with the satellites on precision farming. So I just measure. That means that when we work the land, if you don't have satellites, precision farming, you always end up working also a part of the land twice because you have to stay. On the safeguard, you know. And if you add the small part for farm, which is big, that's another farm.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So that means that once you get technology, you can grow in a more competitive way. So the idea that people have that transition is not economical is not true, especially in farming. It's just that you need investment. That's why it was so important for us to invest also in energy, because that gave us another market to help the up and down of the food market. It's not stable. And at the same time, it gave us the digested, which is so important for recover. fertilize the soil, restoring also the organic matter.
Speaker #1
And that's very, very interesting what you say, because earlier today we heard Commissioner Jorgensen talk about the 2022 crisis when Russia invaded Ukraine. And as at the time he was Minister for Energy and he was thinking that maybe he had to make some choices to cut the supply of some places. But he's from Denmark and biogas is quite popular. So it acted as some kind of guarantee or as a buffer that there would still be some gas in the system to... For instance, heat hospitals or schools and not leave people cold. Right now, what is interesting is that we are facing another gas crisis, another energy crisis, or maybe it's the continuation of the previous ones. But since a few months, there has been immense discussion and you can really see that policymakers are stressed over the fertilizers that they can't travel via the Strait of Hormuz. Or now there are these discussions with American gas or Russian gas and prices are extremely high. The biogas is still a fraction of what the European Union use, right? It's around 7%. Yes,
Speaker #0
it's still very low and very under, still very under on the target we have by 2030. So we need to push. Because it definitely could be an answer.
Speaker #1
And that's why I also find today's angle for the conference today was around the security. Because there are still sectors where it's just not possible to electrify. It demands too much energy. Your recent reports mention ceramics, for instance, or some places like that. So you just mentioned that you are under the current target, but you are going in a certain direction as well. Can you? Explain to us a little bit more the context around biogas and why it seems so important that the commissioner is coming today.
Speaker #0
Yes, but so let's go back to my, for one moment, my experience. So I started 15 years ago producing biogas and electrical and thermal energy through CHP.
Speaker #1
And that's heat and power.
Speaker #0
Heat and power. It was the first... Then we, I, and we started thinking that probably producing electrical energy through biogas could be not exactly the best choice for the future. Why? Because in the future, if you want to have electrical energy, you can have from solar and wind. You can program this energy, it's true. Biogas, you can program if you want. But still, you know, you need to get. to feed the plant. So you will have a cost that otherwise it's not. So the idea is that for me, from the beginning, when I saw this plant, I thought, oh, this is very important. I can't see my farm without anaerobic digestion. So we need, in our association, with the help of the industries, we need to start thinking also how to produce biomethane. Biomethane is just... 55% of the biogas.
Speaker #1
Okay.
Speaker #0
Because the other 45% basically is CO2, biogenic CO2. Okay. So there it is. Okay, we are producing biogas. This biogas can produce energy. But if we can upgrade the biogas into biomethane and compress the biomethane into natural gas grid, we can have a different kind of energy, which is stockable and we can use seasonable as well. And? that can be used from the hardwood-based sector industry, which they don't have any other option to decarbonize. So in 2022, I started a new project from my plant, and I built, I just upgraded the plant to produce biomethane. So I upgraded the plant, and I'm producing instead of electrical energy, Now I'm producing biomethane. I'm injecting biomethane in the transport distribution grid and I'm selling this biomethane to a big steel industry that is using my biomethane to decarbonize the process.
Speaker #1
Is it certified? Like, is it a way for the steel industry to also say that they are doing efforts?
Speaker #0
Yeah. First of all, we need to be in compliance with the... Oh, movie deluge. European targets. So you need to be, you need to save at least 80% of the GHG that is compared to the natural gas. So there's a process of certification in which you measure the feedstock, you measure the kind of technology you are using. And at the end, there's a third party certification auditor that comes to you and certificate that your biomethane is in compliance. And then... The industry can use this biomeet, the guarantee origin, which is close with, this is related to my biometan, they can use it to... in their balance, in their balance, in ETS balance.
Speaker #1
Okay. So you operate in Lombardy. For the listeners or the viewers who don't know Lombardy, it's the economic motor of Italy. It's the region where most of the innovation is happening. And there is a lot of, it's traditionally a place where there's a lot of startups. It's the region of Milan as well. So do people in Milan receive... biogas in a way that you produce? Is it going up there? I mean, how does it work in practice? Do you know when your home is being heated with the biogas?
Speaker #0
No, because now at the moment, the biomethane is injected for two sectors, transport and industrial uses. So we don't have domestic use because we are still producing. More or less 1.5 billion cubic meters of biomethane in Italy, which is, you know, it's just enough to, we managed to decarbonize all the natural gas into the vehicles, so the transport sector. And now we are starting with the industrial uses. So at the moment, there's no biomethane that goes to heat, to the heating sector. In the future, you probably will have this. You can have this as well, exactly as you have, for example, for electrical energy. You can buy electrical energy from PV that is installed somewhere else. You just make the balance.
Speaker #1
And it's even on the electricity bill or in the electricity contract, you choose to have green electricity.
Speaker #0
We can have exactly the same.
Speaker #1
That's very interesting. But let's make a step back because when you started with biogas, What was the reaction around you? Did people call you crazy for even trying such a different way of doing things? What was the reaction?
Speaker #0
Okay. So I had to basically, first of all, have a dialogue with my father, let's say like this. So something was, but I'm lucky because my father is an engineer and he's very keen in innovation. So I'm... I mean, I was, for this, I've been very lucky. So every time I was talking about innovation, it was supportive. Then when we started biogas in farming in Italy, no farmers were so interested. So that's why, for example, we decided to found the Consorzio Italiano Biogas, which is the first association, because we found it that we need to stay together. The first mover wanted to make a sort of, let's say, district, because we were facing a new technology. So we had to face with an energy sector, which was not our sector. So we decided something that is not so common in farming to stay together in this association. We started in seven, just farmers. And it was funny, you know, because first time was like going to a group of, you know, all the things, yes, I'm Piero and I'm also producing biogas. But at the end, it was good because that time, if you decided, if you have decided to make a big investment in your farm, with a 15 years, 20 years perspective of, you know, coming back period. You should have like a long vision, even if you, it depends. It's not like this is not like you're young, being young or old. So the first movers was also very, it was the visioners.
Speaker #1
Yeah. I mean, you had to deal with the bureaucracy, to the regulator, to the existing actors who may have seen you like. who are these little guys who want to do something. Also with the banks as well and the local population who must have a job. Yes,
Speaker #0
in the city. And starting from these seven people that were like seven people staying together in the bar. Anyway, seven members at the end. And now we start growing and then we learn from abroad because Germany had already a very... We play a sector very developed and a good association. And we saw that in Germany, industry was inside the association. So we asked industry to come in. And here we are now. We have got more than 900 farmers members of our association. And we have more than 250 industry members of our association. Wow. And that means that we built a system that during these 15 years could provide an important role. And I always think that most of the numbers is the idea that is behind. The idea is that, yes, we can make transition with energy efficiency, first of all, renewable energy. Yes, we can try to be better consumers in farming. You have to be, you can produce locally and that's all true. But we still have a productive agriculture that we can afford to make, in which we can afford to have a transition. if we win this battle We got at least two or three goals. First of all, you got a better food sovereignty. Then you will decrease the emission, but you can always build systems that are carbon negative. So we are one of the first systems in which we are not just emitting less, we can also... restore we can also restore more carbon into the soil and then you can have and this is the concept of our conference you know that is made in europe basically the investment that we are driving to have this transition staying to the close the community yeah yeah stay close to the community because we are not you know some strange found uh that stays in in some island. We are basically, most of us are farmers that, you know, if we can, if we compete more, we grow, we invest more and we get this.
Speaker #1
And it's important that you mention that you're still a farmer because it means that you are still like in contact with your, with the animals, with the people living close to you as well, that you see your products on the markets and you don't forget where you are from, which tends to be I mean, energy tends to be something very abstract, but you make it very, very, very concrete. So do people come to you on a regular basis asking you how it works? Because, yeah, I would love to visit your farm.
Speaker #0
Yes, we are here because we are so that you stay in touring, so we are not so far away. But anyway, yes, and I'm saying that the bioeconomy basically is this. Bioeconomy is not just... to produce a different product. It's another business model.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
And you can't build a business model in my bioeconomy if you don't get this approach. And if you don't lose the contacts with your neighbors, if you're a farmer, if you don't work together, if you don't trade, because it's a completely different model. So, I mean, that's, I decided to come back in the farm and I'm... It's the thing that I still love doing the most. And after 25 years of working in my farm, sometimes it's quite shocking to see how things are changing. And it's very, for me, I'm proud to see that I've been changing this with my father. And now my brother is working with me. So this is something that, you know, is the core of what I'm doing. At the same time, I truly believe that we had an idea which, if it's well developed, can be a game changer.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
We call it, in some way, biographies not right. This means that, yes, this technology is something that's always been there. We are changing the way we are looking at this technology, but we need to be sure that we apply the technology in the right way. Yeah. If the technology is applied in the right way, we can win because we can have energy, renewable energy, we can have fertilizer, we can get biogenic CO2, we can be more resilient in the farming. We can have more independence in Europe as a producing enough to produce energy. So we are working for security as well. So basically all these goals stay together.
Speaker #1
Yeah. And there is also this idea of sufficiency as well, like of not wasting the energy that we have, like making the most out of the resources that we have as well, which is a concept that, again, tends to be overlooked when discussing the big... the big trends and seeing only the big picture, right? Whereas when you understand the efforts that are behind producing this gas and understanding that it has to go towards the places where it's needed for so many reasons, but including like the technological limits we are living in, that makes it also very, very, like such an important. part of this jigsaw puzzle that is the energy transition but what still surprises you or what is one of the questions that come back to you because i came here today with a very open mind and i'm really like positively surprised about what the sector is i find it interesting challenging yeah it kind of challenged my my conception about the the energy sector so i like it i like your challenge. I like my curiosity to be stimulated. Maybe there are some questions or concerns that people ask you whenever you have the opportunity to present your farm or present your work that could be worth sharing today.
Speaker #0
Yes, I think the first question that sometimes still amazes me is that, oh, but you're using crops to produce energy, you know. And this idea that from crops or anyway from agriculture, you should produce just food. It's something that we can't afford to have now because we had for 15 years fossil fuels. Because before the, you know, the Swiss, the Swiss, you know, the Hoppen, basically in a farm, you had to produce everything. You have to produce fiber, you have to produce feed, you have to produce food, you have to produce energy. When there was no machinery, 50% of... The growth of the crops were given to people that were working in the field. So basically, this was the energy.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were using the affordable.
Speaker #0
So basically, now we are a little bit more, you know, saying that, oh, so you need to produce food. I think this is not true. From the land, if we want to make the transition, we need to have enough carbon. To produce food, energy and materials. That is the true, that is something that I wanted to, I mean, it's going to challenge me.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
How can you increase the dry matter that you produce for a nectar? How can you produce more with less? Because this is circular economy. Circular economy is not just producing less. That is just a bad economy. Circular economy is that You know, what we are trying to do is I'm increasing my rotation and increasing my production without using organic fertilizing produced from digested without using chemical fertilizing. This is actually for our economy.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So I believe there's some ideas that are, you know, well established in our, is coming from the models we are basically used to have.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
And it's difficult to change. There's a cultural reason, but also there's a reason that is cost. I was saying today, if you take driving in the airport, you know, to have the complete transition, you need to move huge investment.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So the idea is that we need to have, when people come to me, I always say, okay, this is my, I'm trying to do my bit. on the other side as a farmer I know that there's no just one solution. So I'm investing in photovoltaic as well. I'm investing to get a better irrigation with drip system. I'm investing in precision farming. So I'm investing in like efficiency. So you have to have all those things open to, and this, as I was saying, It's not just.
Speaker #1
ecological is also a long-term vision economics yeah and if you had a message to send to policymakers now yes uh the conference today talked a lot about the need for perhaps a european market for for biomethane or something is it if i'm correct so if you had one mess or a few messages you would like to to send them what would they be yes
Speaker #0
i've been working with this for some Sometimes I can say that for me, it's very important. I mean, that we need to drive the force on some goals and to keep it for at least a medium long term period. So we are making all this debate on the cap policy, which is I can understand is important. But at the same time, I think it's very important to see which. culture we want in Europe for the next 20 years. So take the money, put in some dedicated measure and invest in them for a long period that industry can provide to be ready. Farmers know that they can have a long term return. And that is very important because what we are facing doesn't fit with... policy that have not long-term vision.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, because you're making investment and I mean nature has its ways as well like you can't go against the season so you must follow this way.
Speaker #0
You know because we are also you know the agriculture is especially the herds are always been you know inside the one of the problems of the ecology transition and we say that they are one of the answer. So if you look at the other way, so I think we need to work together. You can't have an answer and you can't make a proposal that is good for your sector. That's why it was here good to present to the commissioner the report we have done for industrial uses, because it's not just farming that can produce biomethane. It's also all the outdoor-based sector. Yeah. That means people that are working in the industry in Europe that have to face with the decarbonization. Yeah. And they have to face also with the competitive of energy because most of those industries have got 60, 70% of their cost in energy.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker #0
And we can, okay, as a farmer, we can go away with our production, but, you know, industry can take it and close and go somewhere else. But yeah. And so that is the topic that is about Green Deal. Green, we all agree that green, but the deal. We need to make a deal with the productive, with the sector, with the people that is on the field of production every day.
Speaker #1
And if you had some messages to send to young farmers or young in the sense of people who... are considering farming or are starting with their family exploitation or something and would like to start with biogas or all the work that you have made and you have paved the way for them to do, what would that be? Or maybe to your younger self, right?
Speaker #0
Yeah, this is a problem with me. I've always tried to, sometimes I have to be, my father said you need to be quiet but let's say in In our association, we founded, with CHIP, we founded a foundation which calls Farming for Future. If you want to go and see the website, basically are 10 actions that farmers can make to drive the transition. Which is obviously anaerobic digestion is one of them, but it's not all of them. So my suggestion is, first of all, to try to have this holistic approach. in which you don't get, you know, what you have as guaranteed. And in our sector, sometimes this is the problem because, you know, it's always been done like this. If you are a farmer, everybody will tell you in the farm, your father, the people working. But why have we always been doing like this?
Speaker #1
Yeah, but the tractor, it wasn't running with diesel 100 years ago. Yes.
Speaker #0
And it changed. Yes, but you have to understand that, you know, to To change things, you need to make an effort and prove it. And the change goes with the rhythm of the season. So you have to wait six months to get the result. And so the idea is to have this holistic approach. And so the foundation is basically where young farmers in our association can work to implement this project. So this is something important. I'm with them as well because I'm still... But anyway, have this holistic approach and don't be scared or make some mistake. Because, you know, if you make some mistakes, you learn. In farming, it's difficult because, as I said, timing is different. But still, you need to make things change if you want to learn something. And then I should say, now that... There are so many technology coming in. Try to have people working with you that are good. It's difficult, but you can find. And I think also in a farm, you can have a good team of people working with you and give you the knowledge. And we will have even more knowledge, young people coming in our farm because we've got such a technology revolution coming in that is amazing.
Speaker #1
That's great. And that's great to hear. And I will tell you an anecdote. A few years ago, I was working in Burkina Faso, and I met an amazing young woman who was working on biogas in Burkina Faso. And she was saying that she was absolutely passionate about the subject. But still, there was a kind of a taboo around biogas because it was about working with manure in a society that expects women to also cook and take care of the children, etc. But now you say that, you know, there's a lot of technology, so maybe you don't need to put your hands as dirty as in all contexts all the time. So maybe that's a different way to attract people's eyes as well.
Speaker #0
Let's say that you still have to do something like this. In a sense, it's also the good part.
Speaker #1
Okay.
Speaker #0
Because I think, I mean, that's probably because I'm like this. I mean, I wouldn't... I couldn't work just to move numbers and move things. And that's why I like farming because I move things instead of numbers. But I still believe that, especially in Italy, in this sector, we got two of the excellence of the made in Italy, which is the agro-industry sector and the gas sector. that's I think one also one thing why we could find so a positive environment to develop this model and this business because Italy has been working with gas sector from everywhere when I was going to Germany 15-20 years ago looking at the biogas plant yes they were in Germany but if you were going to see where the pumps comes from where the compressor comes from They were coming from Forlì, coming from Bologna. So this is because we have got this know-how. And that's why it's so exciting to put those two things together.
Speaker #1
That's really super interesting, super inspiring. How really tradition and modernity and the future can really cohabit together for secularity, for sustainability and to truly deliver a deal that is green. And that is made really for everyone. Thank you so much, Pierre.
Speaker #0
Thank you.
Speaker #1
Energetic explores the people, policies and institutions shaping Europe's and the world's energy transition. I am Marine Cornelis. If you found this conversation valuable, you can share it with colleagues working on housing, governance and consumer protection. You will find references and further reading in the show notes. Until next time.

About Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

About Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Description

We discuss:

Why a dairy farm with tight margins turned to energy as a second market
How digestate returns organic matter to the soil and replaces chemical fertiliser
Why food, feed and energy can share the same land
Where Italian biomethane goes today, and why it does not yet reach household heating
Why the first farmers to invest had to organise together
What long-term policy would mean for farmers and industry alike

A conversation about whose land, knowledge and trust the transition relies on, and who it still overlooks.

Energ' Ethic goes out every other week.

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Music: I Need You Here - Kamarius
Edition: Podcast Media Factory

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Transcription

Speaker #0
If you don't use the soil, which is the best place how to stock carbon, if you don't change the way we are farming, we will never get the result that we need. And this is clearly written in every EPPC report and everything. We not just have to mitigate, we also have to capture.
Speaker #1
When we picture the energy transition, usually we picture it from Cities, from rooftop solar, from heat pumps, electric cars, households comparing their bills. We talk a lot about electrification, of course, and it's fair. It's, of course, so much lighter on CO2 emissions. But farms and rural communities, they tend to be kind of overlooked. Biogas sits exactly... at that in in this blind spot before preparing this episode i must say i was completely ignorant of the sector and i mostly associated with the waste and with the debate on cattle emissions and i suspect many of my listeners do too so that gap I'm saying an understanding. I think it matters as well, because that's also why I accepted with great pleasure the invitation from the European Biogas Association to join them at this European Biomethan Week. And I think it's really important to have this discussion because I really think, of course, you know me now that trust, public trust really shapes the world we live in. And decisions must be made in a way that embrace the variety of the population in the territories we are living in. And also where and how biomethan is made, how it should go, etc. My guest today is Piero Gastoni. Welcome, Piero. Piero is a farmer and a livestock breeder from Lombardia in northern Italy. He's the president of the Consorzio Italiano Biogas. And since 2025, you're also the president of the European Biogas Association. So he speaks from the farm. Well, actually from the European Biomethan Conference today. But he speaks as a farmer and as, you know, someone who knows the sector from the inside. So I think... You're probably the best person to talk about this topic and really help us understand why it is so strategically important for European lifestyle, for European safety of supply, but also in terms of how the biogas industry plays a key role in our sustainable future. So, Piero, maybe you could tell us a little bit about your story. Why biogas? What got you hooked?
Speaker #0
Why biogas? So first of all, after my study, I decided to come back and run my family farms. You know, as you said, it's a mixed farming in the north part of Italy, in the Po Valley. So we produce, we go cows and I heard of cows and we produce animal feed like, you know, forage and cereal. and this was a very the kind of farm that I've been, you know, I've been facing when I first started working with my father. By that time was early 2000, you know, the economics of the farm was quite tight and also because I could understand that I was producing a lot for producer commodities, mostly, you know, milk is a commodity and so I didn't have this, I couldn't find the way I could develop. the farm. So I started looking at energy as a potential other market. And I thought this was interesting. And by that time was the 2020 target period for European. So basically, European was pushing to produce a little more renewable energy. Okay, so the transition was not so inside the topic still, but we could see that Europe was starting to push to have renewable energy and biomass was one of those. So I start. Going around Europe, I went to Germany, Austria, Sweden to see different kind of production from different kind of production and I found the biogas technology the right one to complete my farm because I did have a hearth through anaerobic digestion which is basically like having a big, you know, something big, a big circle in which you put inside manure. You put inside byproducts and organic matter that's during fermentation produce biogas that go to a CHP, to a motor, to a CHP to produce energy, electrical energy. So that's kind of technology, the oldest technology you can have because it's something that bacteria can produce this biogas. I could get value for something that was lost. So that was the start. I look around and I found that anaerobic digestion was the right technology to fit in my farm.
Speaker #1
That's interesting that you say taking value for something that would be lost, because it's not only monetary value, it's also a product that comes from the animals, comes from the residues. And as a farmer... you had to dispose of this product. So it had a cost also for you, probably, too. Yes. And you needed to understand a little bit better what to do with that cost.
Speaker #0
Yes. By that time, you know, there was a support scheme to produce biogas in Italy. And the support scheme was pretty open. You didn't have to use byproduct or manure, but you could also use crops to produce biogas. you That was exactly why from the beginning I found that to be in my farm to get energy, I didn't have to change the core business. But I did have to develop energy inside the core business. So that's why I found very interesting to get value from the manure and value from... different byproducts that, you know, agri-industry is producing close to me. And that's why I start restarting having a different model, technology model, with something that in agriculture it's always been doing. Because you said something in the beginning, you know, farms are for most part of the opinion of the people outside the transition.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
Mike Farming is the core of the transition. Because what is the transition? Transition is basically to work on the CO2 balance. Because for many years, we've been using CO2 that has been stocking inside the soil for centuries. And we've been burned soon to get the development of the industrial period. talk. If we want to restore this balance, yes, you need to mitigate the GHG and you have to mitigate through producing renewable energy through solar and wind.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So through solar and wind, you mitigate. But if you don't get inside the photosynthesis period, if you don't use the soil, which is the best place how to stock carbon. If you don't change the way we are farming, we will never get the result that we need. And this is clearly written in every EPPC report and everything. We not just have to mitigate, we also have to capture. And my farm, what it has done in the last 15 years, through our technology, we just concentred the... biomass is inside the digester. We produce energy, electrical renewable energy, and through digested, which is the byproduct after the anaerobic digestion, which is not burning. It's just digesting. So after all, the organic matter comes out through digested, which is an organic fertilizer. I restarting going organic matter to the soil. And having this, I could also increase a lot the rotation of my farm that in the past was probably 5% of the field. Now it's more than 50% of the field. So I get all the arable land covered all year round because we seed a winter crop and then a spring crop. So we make two crops from the same field. And so I get more carbon. I get more photosynthesis. And I can use the same land. to feed the cows and to produce energy. This is the concept. And I think this is the concept why that helped to, that's why biogas and biomethane can easily go through the debate of, you know, the debate of producing food, feed or energy. That was the first generation by four problems, you know, because you were using the land not to produce food. But to produce ends, so this was just displacing carbon to one market to another. We are keep producing our cheese, we are keep producing our meat, we are keep producing our products, and we are using the organic fertilizer, so reducing chemical fertilizer, and we are getting a better, so we are not just farming in a more sustainable way. we are also more competitive in the market.
Speaker #1
No, that's interesting because you completely overhaul the idea of extraction, like extracting from nature. It's really more like working with nature and making sure you feed it, you respect it, you give it back. And that's a complete, I mean, that's fascinating to see how sustainable it is. It's like the essence of sustainability, right? And very often... In the energy transition discourse, we also hear that places are competing. There is competition for land, like, as you said, for agriculture, for cattle's agriculture, like growing cereals or legumes for people and producing energy. And there was also recently some debates over electrical, like solar panels over farms, etc. Whereas you say, but there is also one element you haven't considered, which is biogas. which combines them all. And why is not everyone doing just like you do?
Speaker #0
Because, okay, so first of all, it's not easy and you need investment. I believe the ecological transition could be also that economic transition. And that is simple. I'm talking as a farmer. When you do an ecological choice... Most of the time you do also an economic choice.
Speaker #1
I mean, best.
Speaker #0
Okay. My tractors goes with precision farming, you know, with the satellites on precision farming. So I just measure. That means that when we work the land, if you don't have satellites, precision farming, you always end up working also a part of the land twice because you have to stay. On the safeguard, you know. And if you add the small part for farm, which is big, that's another farm.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So that means that once you get technology, you can grow in a more competitive way. So the idea that people have that transition is not economical is not true, especially in farming. It's just that you need investment. That's why it was so important for us to invest also in energy, because that gave us another market to help the up and down of the food market. It's not stable. And at the same time, it gave us the digested, which is so important for recover. fertilize the soil, restoring also the organic matter.
Speaker #1
And that's very, very interesting what you say, because earlier today we heard Commissioner Jorgensen talk about the 2022 crisis when Russia invaded Ukraine. And as at the time he was Minister for Energy and he was thinking that maybe he had to make some choices to cut the supply of some places. But he's from Denmark and biogas is quite popular. So it acted as some kind of guarantee or as a buffer that there would still be some gas in the system to... For instance, heat hospitals or schools and not leave people cold. Right now, what is interesting is that we are facing another gas crisis, another energy crisis, or maybe it's the continuation of the previous ones. But since a few months, there has been immense discussion and you can really see that policymakers are stressed over the fertilizers that they can't travel via the Strait of Hormuz. Or now there are these discussions with American gas or Russian gas and prices are extremely high. The biogas is still a fraction of what the European Union use, right? It's around 7%. Yes,
Speaker #0
it's still very low and very under, still very under on the target we have by 2030. So we need to push. Because it definitely could be an answer.
Speaker #1
And that's why I also find today's angle for the conference today was around the security. Because there are still sectors where it's just not possible to electrify. It demands too much energy. Your recent reports mention ceramics, for instance, or some places like that. So you just mentioned that you are under the current target, but you are going in a certain direction as well. Can you? Explain to us a little bit more the context around biogas and why it seems so important that the commissioner is coming today.
Speaker #0
Yes, but so let's go back to my, for one moment, my experience. So I started 15 years ago producing biogas and electrical and thermal energy through CHP.
Speaker #1
And that's heat and power.
Speaker #0
Heat and power. It was the first... Then we, I, and we started thinking that probably producing electrical energy through biogas could be not exactly the best choice for the future. Why? Because in the future, if you want to have electrical energy, you can have from solar and wind. You can program this energy, it's true. Biogas, you can program if you want. But still, you know, you need to get. to feed the plant. So you will have a cost that otherwise it's not. So the idea is that for me, from the beginning, when I saw this plant, I thought, oh, this is very important. I can't see my farm without anaerobic digestion. So we need, in our association, with the help of the industries, we need to start thinking also how to produce biomethane. Biomethane is just... 55% of the biogas.
Speaker #1
Okay.
Speaker #0
Because the other 45% basically is CO2, biogenic CO2. Okay. So there it is. Okay, we are producing biogas. This biogas can produce energy. But if we can upgrade the biogas into biomethane and compress the biomethane into natural gas grid, we can have a different kind of energy, which is stockable and we can use seasonable as well. And? that can be used from the hardwood-based sector industry, which they don't have any other option to decarbonize. So in 2022, I started a new project from my plant, and I built, I just upgraded the plant to produce biomethane. So I upgraded the plant, and I'm producing instead of electrical energy, Now I'm producing biomethane. I'm injecting biomethane in the transport distribution grid and I'm selling this biomethane to a big steel industry that is using my biomethane to decarbonize the process.
Speaker #1
Is it certified? Like, is it a way for the steel industry to also say that they are doing efforts?
Speaker #0
Yeah. First of all, we need to be in compliance with the... Oh, movie deluge. European targets. So you need to be, you need to save at least 80% of the GHG that is compared to the natural gas. So there's a process of certification in which you measure the feedstock, you measure the kind of technology you are using. And at the end, there's a third party certification auditor that comes to you and certificate that your biomethane is in compliance. And then... The industry can use this biomeet, the guarantee origin, which is close with, this is related to my biometan, they can use it to... in their balance, in their balance, in ETS balance.
Speaker #1
Okay. So you operate in Lombardy. For the listeners or the viewers who don't know Lombardy, it's the economic motor of Italy. It's the region where most of the innovation is happening. And there is a lot of, it's traditionally a place where there's a lot of startups. It's the region of Milan as well. So do people in Milan receive... biogas in a way that you produce? Is it going up there? I mean, how does it work in practice? Do you know when your home is being heated with the biogas?
Speaker #0
No, because now at the moment, the biomethane is injected for two sectors, transport and industrial uses. So we don't have domestic use because we are still producing. More or less 1.5 billion cubic meters of biomethane in Italy, which is, you know, it's just enough to, we managed to decarbonize all the natural gas into the vehicles, so the transport sector. And now we are starting with the industrial uses. So at the moment, there's no biomethane that goes to heat, to the heating sector. In the future, you probably will have this. You can have this as well, exactly as you have, for example, for electrical energy. You can buy electrical energy from PV that is installed somewhere else. You just make the balance.
Speaker #1
And it's even on the electricity bill or in the electricity contract, you choose to have green electricity.
Speaker #0
We can have exactly the same.
Speaker #1
That's very interesting. But let's make a step back because when you started with biogas, What was the reaction around you? Did people call you crazy for even trying such a different way of doing things? What was the reaction?
Speaker #0
Okay. So I had to basically, first of all, have a dialogue with my father, let's say like this. So something was, but I'm lucky because my father is an engineer and he's very keen in innovation. So I'm... I mean, I was, for this, I've been very lucky. So every time I was talking about innovation, it was supportive. Then when we started biogas in farming in Italy, no farmers were so interested. So that's why, for example, we decided to found the Consorzio Italiano Biogas, which is the first association, because we found it that we need to stay together. The first mover wanted to make a sort of, let's say, district, because we were facing a new technology. So we had to face with an energy sector, which was not our sector. So we decided something that is not so common in farming to stay together in this association. We started in seven, just farmers. And it was funny, you know, because first time was like going to a group of, you know, all the things, yes, I'm Piero and I'm also producing biogas. But at the end, it was good because that time, if you decided, if you have decided to make a big investment in your farm, with a 15 years, 20 years perspective of, you know, coming back period. You should have like a long vision, even if you, it depends. It's not like this is not like you're young, being young or old. So the first movers was also very, it was the visioners.
Speaker #1
Yeah. I mean, you had to deal with the bureaucracy, to the regulator, to the existing actors who may have seen you like. who are these little guys who want to do something. Also with the banks as well and the local population who must have a job. Yes,
Speaker #0
in the city. And starting from these seven people that were like seven people staying together in the bar. Anyway, seven members at the end. And now we start growing and then we learn from abroad because Germany had already a very... We play a sector very developed and a good association. And we saw that in Germany, industry was inside the association. So we asked industry to come in. And here we are now. We have got more than 900 farmers members of our association. And we have more than 250 industry members of our association. Wow. And that means that we built a system that during these 15 years could provide an important role. And I always think that most of the numbers is the idea that is behind. The idea is that, yes, we can make transition with energy efficiency, first of all, renewable energy. Yes, we can try to be better consumers in farming. You have to be, you can produce locally and that's all true. But we still have a productive agriculture that we can afford to make, in which we can afford to have a transition. if we win this battle We got at least two or three goals. First of all, you got a better food sovereignty. Then you will decrease the emission, but you can always build systems that are carbon negative. So we are one of the first systems in which we are not just emitting less, we can also... restore we can also restore more carbon into the soil and then you can have and this is the concept of our conference you know that is made in europe basically the investment that we are driving to have this transition staying to the close the community yeah yeah stay close to the community because we are not you know some strange found uh that stays in in some island. We are basically, most of us are farmers that, you know, if we can, if we compete more, we grow, we invest more and we get this.
Speaker #1
And it's important that you mention that you're still a farmer because it means that you are still like in contact with your, with the animals, with the people living close to you as well, that you see your products on the markets and you don't forget where you are from, which tends to be I mean, energy tends to be something very abstract, but you make it very, very, very concrete. So do people come to you on a regular basis asking you how it works? Because, yeah, I would love to visit your farm.
Speaker #0
Yes, we are here because we are so that you stay in touring, so we are not so far away. But anyway, yes, and I'm saying that the bioeconomy basically is this. Bioeconomy is not just... to produce a different product. It's another business model.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
And you can't build a business model in my bioeconomy if you don't get this approach. And if you don't lose the contacts with your neighbors, if you're a farmer, if you don't work together, if you don't trade, because it's a completely different model. So, I mean, that's, I decided to come back in the farm and I'm... It's the thing that I still love doing the most. And after 25 years of working in my farm, sometimes it's quite shocking to see how things are changing. And it's very, for me, I'm proud to see that I've been changing this with my father. And now my brother is working with me. So this is something that, you know, is the core of what I'm doing. At the same time, I truly believe that we had an idea which, if it's well developed, can be a game changer.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
We call it, in some way, biographies not right. This means that, yes, this technology is something that's always been there. We are changing the way we are looking at this technology, but we need to be sure that we apply the technology in the right way. Yeah. If the technology is applied in the right way, we can win because we can have energy, renewable energy, we can have fertilizer, we can get biogenic CO2, we can be more resilient in the farming. We can have more independence in Europe as a producing enough to produce energy. So we are working for security as well. So basically all these goals stay together.
Speaker #1
Yeah. And there is also this idea of sufficiency as well, like of not wasting the energy that we have, like making the most out of the resources that we have as well, which is a concept that, again, tends to be overlooked when discussing the big... the big trends and seeing only the big picture, right? Whereas when you understand the efforts that are behind producing this gas and understanding that it has to go towards the places where it's needed for so many reasons, but including like the technological limits we are living in, that makes it also very, very, like such an important. part of this jigsaw puzzle that is the energy transition but what still surprises you or what is one of the questions that come back to you because i came here today with a very open mind and i'm really like positively surprised about what the sector is i find it interesting challenging yeah it kind of challenged my my conception about the the energy sector so i like it i like your challenge. I like my curiosity to be stimulated. Maybe there are some questions or concerns that people ask you whenever you have the opportunity to present your farm or present your work that could be worth sharing today.
Speaker #0
Yes, I think the first question that sometimes still amazes me is that, oh, but you're using crops to produce energy, you know. And this idea that from crops or anyway from agriculture, you should produce just food. It's something that we can't afford to have now because we had for 15 years fossil fuels. Because before the, you know, the Swiss, the Swiss, you know, the Hoppen, basically in a farm, you had to produce everything. You have to produce fiber, you have to produce feed, you have to produce food, you have to produce energy. When there was no machinery, 50% of... The growth of the crops were given to people that were working in the field. So basically, this was the energy.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were using the affordable.
Speaker #0
So basically, now we are a little bit more, you know, saying that, oh, so you need to produce food. I think this is not true. From the land, if we want to make the transition, we need to have enough carbon. To produce food, energy and materials. That is the true, that is something that I wanted to, I mean, it's going to challenge me.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
How can you increase the dry matter that you produce for a nectar? How can you produce more with less? Because this is circular economy. Circular economy is not just producing less. That is just a bad economy. Circular economy is that You know, what we are trying to do is I'm increasing my rotation and increasing my production without using organic fertilizing produced from digested without using chemical fertilizing. This is actually for our economy.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So I believe there's some ideas that are, you know, well established in our, is coming from the models we are basically used to have.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
And it's difficult to change. There's a cultural reason, but also there's a reason that is cost. I was saying today, if you take driving in the airport, you know, to have the complete transition, you need to move huge investment.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So the idea is that we need to have, when people come to me, I always say, okay, this is my, I'm trying to do my bit. on the other side as a farmer I know that there's no just one solution. So I'm investing in photovoltaic as well. I'm investing to get a better irrigation with drip system. I'm investing in precision farming. So I'm investing in like efficiency. So you have to have all those things open to, and this, as I was saying, It's not just.
Speaker #1
ecological is also a long-term vision economics yeah and if you had a message to send to policymakers now yes uh the conference today talked a lot about the need for perhaps a european market for for biomethane or something is it if i'm correct so if you had one mess or a few messages you would like to to send them what would they be yes
Speaker #0
i've been working with this for some Sometimes I can say that for me, it's very important. I mean, that we need to drive the force on some goals and to keep it for at least a medium long term period. So we are making all this debate on the cap policy, which is I can understand is important. But at the same time, I think it's very important to see which. culture we want in Europe for the next 20 years. So take the money, put in some dedicated measure and invest in them for a long period that industry can provide to be ready. Farmers know that they can have a long term return. And that is very important because what we are facing doesn't fit with... policy that have not long-term vision.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, because you're making investment and I mean nature has its ways as well like you can't go against the season so you must follow this way.
Speaker #0
You know because we are also you know the agriculture is especially the herds are always been you know inside the one of the problems of the ecology transition and we say that they are one of the answer. So if you look at the other way, so I think we need to work together. You can't have an answer and you can't make a proposal that is good for your sector. That's why it was here good to present to the commissioner the report we have done for industrial uses, because it's not just farming that can produce biomethane. It's also all the outdoor-based sector. Yeah. That means people that are working in the industry in Europe that have to face with the decarbonization. Yeah. And they have to face also with the competitive of energy because most of those industries have got 60, 70% of their cost in energy.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker #0
And we can, okay, as a farmer, we can go away with our production, but, you know, industry can take it and close and go somewhere else. But yeah. And so that is the topic that is about Green Deal. Green, we all agree that green, but the deal. We need to make a deal with the productive, with the sector, with the people that is on the field of production every day.
Speaker #1
And if you had some messages to send to young farmers or young in the sense of people who... are considering farming or are starting with their family exploitation or something and would like to start with biogas or all the work that you have made and you have paved the way for them to do, what would that be? Or maybe to your younger self, right?
Speaker #0
Yeah, this is a problem with me. I've always tried to, sometimes I have to be, my father said you need to be quiet but let's say in In our association, we founded, with CHIP, we founded a foundation which calls Farming for Future. If you want to go and see the website, basically are 10 actions that farmers can make to drive the transition. Which is obviously anaerobic digestion is one of them, but it's not all of them. So my suggestion is, first of all, to try to have this holistic approach. in which you don't get, you know, what you have as guaranteed. And in our sector, sometimes this is the problem because, you know, it's always been done like this. If you are a farmer, everybody will tell you in the farm, your father, the people working. But why have we always been doing like this?
Speaker #1
Yeah, but the tractor, it wasn't running with diesel 100 years ago. Yes.
Speaker #0
And it changed. Yes, but you have to understand that, you know, to To change things, you need to make an effort and prove it. And the change goes with the rhythm of the season. So you have to wait six months to get the result. And so the idea is to have this holistic approach. And so the foundation is basically where young farmers in our association can work to implement this project. So this is something important. I'm with them as well because I'm still... But anyway, have this holistic approach and don't be scared or make some mistake. Because, you know, if you make some mistakes, you learn. In farming, it's difficult because, as I said, timing is different. But still, you need to make things change if you want to learn something. And then I should say, now that... There are so many technology coming in. Try to have people working with you that are good. It's difficult, but you can find. And I think also in a farm, you can have a good team of people working with you and give you the knowledge. And we will have even more knowledge, young people coming in our farm because we've got such a technology revolution coming in that is amazing.
Speaker #1
That's great. And that's great to hear. And I will tell you an anecdote. A few years ago, I was working in Burkina Faso, and I met an amazing young woman who was working on biogas in Burkina Faso. And she was saying that she was absolutely passionate about the subject. But still, there was a kind of a taboo around biogas because it was about working with manure in a society that expects women to also cook and take care of the children, etc. But now you say that, you know, there's a lot of technology, so maybe you don't need to put your hands as dirty as in all contexts all the time. So maybe that's a different way to attract people's eyes as well.
Speaker #0
Let's say that you still have to do something like this. In a sense, it's also the good part.
Speaker #1
Okay.
Speaker #0
Because I think, I mean, that's probably because I'm like this. I mean, I wouldn't... I couldn't work just to move numbers and move things. And that's why I like farming because I move things instead of numbers. But I still believe that, especially in Italy, in this sector, we got two of the excellence of the made in Italy, which is the agro-industry sector and the gas sector. that's I think one also one thing why we could find so a positive environment to develop this model and this business because Italy has been working with gas sector from everywhere when I was going to Germany 15-20 years ago looking at the biogas plant yes they were in Germany but if you were going to see where the pumps comes from where the compressor comes from They were coming from Forlì, coming from Bologna. So this is because we have got this know-how. And that's why it's so exciting to put those two things together.
Speaker #1
That's really super interesting, super inspiring. How really tradition and modernity and the future can really cohabit together for secularity, for sustainability and to truly deliver a deal that is green. And that is made really for everyone. Thank you so much, Pierre.
Speaker #0
Thank you.
Speaker #1
Energetic explores the people, policies and institutions shaping Europe's and the world's energy transition. I am Marine Cornelis. If you found this conversation valuable, you can share it with colleagues working on housing, governance and consumer protection. You will find references and further reading in the show notes. Until next time.

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About Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

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