Agriculture, clean energy and sustainable development: it is around the concrete application of these principles that the hamlet of Ca’ Tron, in the municipality of Roncade, is once again at the center of an important economic and technological investment.
In recent months, the company “Le Tenute Biometano” filed an ambitious project for a plant for the production of biomethane with the Agro-environment management in the Region. The aim is thus to use the second crops of the vast estate that extends over an area of two thousand hectares (one of the largest in Italy) producing fuel gas on one side and an organic fertilizer, the “digestate”, on the other, to be reused in the surrounding land.
«The agreement between the implementing subjects» explains the director of the company, the engineer Stefano Svegliado «arises from the need to redevelop the production of the farm with complete coverage, making it operational for 365 days per year: the first harvest intended, as per tradition, for human consumption or for the food supply for livestock, will be followed by the second harvests, in the autumn period, for transfer to the plant, with the cultivation of specific cereals such as sorghum , soy and others».
In addition to these vegetable substances, any quotas of bovine zootechnical effluents will also contribute to nourishing the “anaerobic digestion” processes of the plant. The project is located between the center of Like Tron and Bagaggiolo, on the western side of via Nuova, in line with the new access road to the Triestina state road. From here, one every three days, the cylinder wagons loaded with liquid methaneo, puro al 99%.
From a technical point of view, the power is 500 standard cubic meters per hour (“about two megawatts, double the currently most common biogas plants” explains Svegliado). There are five tanks covered by domes (digesters and post digesters), some biomass storage trenches and a covered shed for the fertilizer. The presence of the plant, which can be reached via the internal road system of the estate, will be mitigated by strips of trees.
The structure is located a short distance from the pig farm of the Merlo company, in via Principe where the project for an expansion much contested by the neighbors is currently under discussion. The proponents categorically exclude the possibility of using pig effluents in the plant. The practice of Biomethane Estates (30% owned by Catholic Agricola and 70% by Brd, Biogas Refinery Development) is currently deposited in Region and it has already been illustrated in recent months also to the municipal administration, which will have to express itself on the matter in the context of a special services conference.