State of the art and prospects of Italian biogas production from animal sewage: Technical-economic considerations

Effects of changes in Italian bioenergy promotion schemes for agricultural biogas projects: Insights from a regional optimization model

“…As summarized in Table 2, the subsidy consisted of a Feed In Tariff (FIT) made up of an avoided cost and an investment grant component. The CIP6 program initiated biogas generation in the country, with an increase from nearly zero before 1992 to some 400 GWh in 1997, almost completely from landfills (Tricase and Lombardi, 2009 However, not until the introduction of the Feed In Tariff and its final determination at 280 €/MWh with the Law 99/23 July 2009 did agricultural biogas production receive a real boost, mirrored by the three-figure percent growth reported in Table 1 for the years 2010 and 2011.…”

“…Table 1. Evolution of biogas-to-electricity plants from livestock effluents and agricultural activities in Italy, own elaboration based on most recent data available from GSE (2008,2009,2010,2011) Production values recently achieved in Italy are just a fraction of potentials: Tricase and Lombardi (2009) estimated that animal breeding sewage digestion alone could generate up to 3.6 TWh/year, which is approximately twice as much as total production levels in 2011.…”

Sustainable biofuel: A question of scale and aims

“…In these studies, biofuel is viewed essentially as a business (Tateda et al, 2011;Voytenko and Peck, 2012), and territory, which is at the centre of related research, is perceived as the key to achieving particular goals (with respect to second-generation biofuels as well). For example, territory -at each spatial scale -can be analysed to serve an objective such as the identification or evaluation of agricultural residue, residual biomass and/or other products for bioenergy production (Beccali et al, 2008;FerreiraLeitao, 2010;Goltsev et al, 2010;Mabee and Mirck, 2011;Tricase and Lombardi, 2009;Yan, 2008). Policies for biofuel development (Borras et al, 2011;Hultman et al, 2012) in rural areas are analysed to verify opportunities, through the development of biomass, to diversify economies and increase farmers' incomes (Mwakaje, 2012;Zolin, 2011).…”

Waste(d) potential: a socio-technical analysis of biogas production and use in Sweden

“…Many have a techno-economic focus, comparing biogas with other fuels and technologies and assessing production pathways economically (Börjesson and Ahlgren, 2012a;Lantz, 2012;Patterson et al, 2011;Tricase and Lombardi, 2009;Zubaryeva et al, 2012), while others are more concerned with climate impact and energy efficiency (Pöschl et al, 2010;Tilche and Galatola, 2008). There is also a vast amount of studies focusing on technical aspects and process improvements (Appels et al, 2011;Mohseni et al, 2012;Ryckebosch et al, 2011).…”