EU funds help: Waste turns into millions of cubic meters of gas

Anyone who passes by Mladá Boleslav onto the exit road to Jičín will notice several tall white towers with green domes. But few people know that there is a very abundant gas source here on the outskirts of the city, corresponding to around one percent of Czech extraction.
 
The biogas plant of the Compag company can annually produce 1.6 million cubic meters of biomethane from biological waste, with properties indistinguishable from natural gas. Most public transport buses in Mladá Boleslav and the surrounding area run on gas that is refuelled directly at the modern biogas installation. EU funds also supported a project of building a facility for purifying and filling the biogas into buses. The local biomethane is supplied directly to the gas pipeline network, where it is in great demand among environmentally conscious customers thanks to its green certificate.
 
EU FUNDING ENABLED THE MIRACLE
The biogas plant, producing high-quality and widely usable biomethane from kitchen, food-manufacturing and other biowaste, is one of the most modern facilities in Central Europe. Its construction, completed last year, was significantly boosted by co-financing from EU funding intended for the environment. 
 
Almost CZK 160 million from EU funds covered most of the costs of building the giant biogas station. Compag's contribution was approximately CZK 100 million, or about forty percent of the project costs. Another almost CZK 50 million was spent on equipment purifying the gas for buses. Here, EU funds contributed CZK 35 million.
 
As the company representatives admit, without European Union support, one of the largest biogas plants in Central Europe would probably not have been built. Jiří Bouška, the mayor of Mladá Boleslav, is also proud of the ultra-modern computer-controlled operation, dominated by several 14 to 18 meter high towers in which the gas itself is produced, as the city owns a half of the local Compag branch.
 
The biogas installation is part of the city's well-thought-out environmental strategy. The city had already purchased eco-friendly gas-powered buses, also with a support of EU funding. Thanks to the biogas plant, they now fuel them with their own biomethane. In the city of 50,000 people, the modern biogas plant is clearly beneficial even for ordinary citizens.
 "We have somewhere to process waste, and thanks to that, we have some of the lowest fees for municipal waste collection. "In connection with this project, we have also acquired new green buses that provide citizens with cheap and high-quality urban and suburban public transport," said the city’s spokeswoman Šárka Charousková.
 
WASTE OVER GOLD
When visiting the biogas installation, you will be surprised by its cleanliness and almost complete absence of odour as well as the complexity of the entire facility. It is controlled through computers that play a crucial role in every part of the process. A process that begins with predominantly kitchen and food-production waste, and ends with high-quality green biomethane with properties indistinguishable from standard natural gas.
  
"The key is to compound the waste mix correctly," Compag executive Radek Lizec explains as he leads me to the preparation room where the waste is mixed and cleansed, for example from packaging, and then is collected in the tall towers.
 Inside them, biomethane is released and subsequently it is treated and purified to have the desired quality and composition. A by-product is a highly sought-after organic fertilizer.
 
Perhaps the most breath-taking experience is climbing to the tops of the towers in which biomethane is produced from a mixture of waste. Through portholes, it is possible to observe the bubbling mass releasing gas. "And this processed waste is ten meters deep below us," says Radek Lizec.
 
In addition to gas, the biogas plant produces a significant amount of electricity. To keep it running, an important part of the work of the staff team is finding suitable waste for processing. Leftovers from restaurants, cafeterias or school canteens are ideal. Compag collects such waste not only from the wider area around Mladá Boleslav, but also from Liberec and Prague. Expired or spoilt food, including beverages, is also processed here. There could be much more suitable waste if it was sorted already in households.
 
THANKS TO SUPPORT FROM EU FUNDS, WASTE IS CONVERTED INTO GAS AND ENERGY. An entirely unique environmental project was implemented by the city of Mladá Boleslav in cooperation with the private company Compag. A modern biogas plant has been built on the edge of a city of 50,000 inhabitants, transforming kitchen scraps and other biowaste into energy raw material. Not only is it used for heating but it also fuels city buses. The project, worth more than a quarter of a billion Czech crowns, was supported by EU funds with almost CZK 160 million.
 
Photo: Deník daily/ Luboš Palata