Agricultural biogas plants as a hub to foster circular economy and bioenergy: An assessment using substance and energy flow analysis

DOI

Supplementary material for the publication " Agricultural biogas plants as a hub to foster circular economy and bioenergy: An assessment using material substance and energy flow analysis" Burg, V., b, Rolli, C., Schnorf, V., Scharfy, D., Anspach, V., Bowman, G.

Today's agro-food system is typically based on linear fluxes (e.g. mineral fertilizers importation), when a circular approach should be privileged. The production of biogas as a renewable energy source and digestate, used as an organic fertilizer, is essential for the circular economy in the agricultural sector. This study investigates the current utilization of wet biomass in agricultural anaerobic digestion plants in Switzerland in terms of mass, nutrients, and energy flows, to see how biomass use contributes to circular economy and climate change mitigation through the substitution effect of mineral fertilizers and fossil fuels. We quantify the system and its benefits in details and examine future developments of agricultural biogas plants using different scenarios. Our results demonstrate that agricultural anaerobic digestion could be largely increased, as it could provide ten times more biogas by 2050, while saving significant amounts of mineral fertilizer and GHG emissions.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.16904/envidat.346
Metadata Access https://www.envidat.ch/api/action/package_show?id=ba487ad4-b220-4f97-8b91-2817a4252ce3
Provenance
Creator Vanessa, Burg, 0000-0002-7902-6523; Gillianne, Bowman, 0000-0002-4374-3141; Vivienne, Schnorf, schnorf.v@gmail.com; Christian, Rolli,; Deborah, Scharfi,; Victor, Anspach,
Publisher EnviDat
Publication Year 2022
Funding Reference Bundesamt für Energie,
Rights wsl-data; WSL Data Policy
OpenAccess true
Contact envidat(at)wsl.ch
Representation
Language English
Resource Type Dataset
Version 1.0
Discipline Environmental Sciences
Spatial Coverage (5.956W, 45.818S, 10.492E, 47.808N); Switzerland
Temporal Coverage Begin 2020-10-26T00:00:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2022-07-31T00:00:00Z