Germany is a leader in many of the areas focused on the transition from an oil-based to a biologically-oriented economy. This is particularly evident with the example of biogas. No other field can claim so many plants and facilities, in which bacteria produce organic material from the energy carrier methane. Today, as the German market becomes increasingly saturated, companies are looking to construct biogas plants abroad in Europe. Some pioneers are venturing even further, for example to Canada, where German expertise in matters biological is proving welcome. There, like in Germany, the bioeconomy is also being driven forward with grants and research excellence.

The rancher Korb Whale is going to have to act fast. The night before, the impending Canadian winter began to show it’s teeth in earnest. The raised mound of earth behind his house in the province of Ontario has already frozen solid. This is just one outward sign of a vision of a different, more sustainable future. Whale will no longer be spreading the manure from his one hundred dairy cows over the fields; instead, aided by German technology, he will be converting it into electricity. He has invested 1.5 million euros in a biogas plant that will eventually produce around 500 kilowatts of electricity. “It will pay off in eight years,” says the man with the big palms.

Biogas in Germany Biogas is the largest trade organisation in the sector. Their website provides up-to-date figures on the scope and performance of the industry.
Click here for more information

More than two nuclear power plants
Since Ontario passed the Green Energy Act in 2009, Whale can be confident that his calculations will indeed be correct. Alternative producers ­of power are guaranteed a fixed price that is above market level, and which will remain stable for the next 20 years. The model for the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) was Germany’s own Renewable Energy Law, which came into force in April 2000, and which proved spectacularly successful in the field of bioenergy. At the beginning of the millennium there were around 1000 plants already installed, with an arguably negligible power output of 65 MW. According to figures from the trade association Biogas, in 2011 this had risen to 7100 units totalling 2,900 megawatts, thereby equalling the total output of two blocks from Germany's largest nuclear power plant in Gundremmingen. These provide enough energy for more than five million households, covering around 3.5 percent of German electricity consumption.

Over the past ten years, the German biogas industry has grown into the largest in the world – with 46,000 jobs and 6.1 billion euros turnover, it is larger than the whole of Germany’s classical biotechnology industry. The biogas plants are a visible sign of this energy transition, and of a shift to a bioeconomy that has been pushed through by the government. In 2011, under the auspices of the BMBF, an alliance of federal ministries announced the provision of more than 2.4 billion euros up to 2016, which will be used to accelerate this transition (more...).

Today, the biogas industry is so successful that Germany has become too small. If the sector is to grow, then it will need to develop new markets. This process is already in full swing in Europe; there are few companies in the top ten without branches on the continent. To date, however, not many have ventured overseas. In November 2011, a first team was sent out to explore the terrain beyond the Atlantic. The spur was an invitation from the Department of Commerce to the German Chamber of Commerce in Canada to attend a conference in the university town of Guelph that was taking place as part of the Renewable Energy Export Initiative.

From amateur beginnings to a tightly organised professional association

“This reminds me of our beginnings in the 1990s,” says Daniel Hölder, Executive Board Member at the Federal Association for Renewable Energies. “The pumps were put together at the junkyard, there was no monitoring of bacteria, and the Biogas association was a knitted jumper-wearing motley crue.” Today, the association is made up of 4400 members from industry and research. Hölder clearly revels in the tangible enthusiasm among the not quite yet officially sworn-in but nevertheless coherent groups of biogas pioneers in Ontario.

“We are just beginning with the lobbying work,” says Jennifer Green, Managing Director of the 81-member Aggregate Producers' Association of Ontario (APAO). “We introduce ourselves to each individual member, and explain what biogas ­is.” Among others, Jean Francois Samray is responsible for laying down the groundwork. “There are thousands of fermenters in Europe, hundreds in North America, and a handful of Quebec,” says the manager with a small sigh. In pinstripes and a starched shirt, Samray is sitting 600 kilometres northeast of Guelph in the small kitchen of Quebec’s Association for Renewable Energies, which also serves as a meeting room. Samray is doing his best to convince the visitors from Europe of the amazing prospects of bioenergy in the French-speaking province. “Lots is going to change.” In the meantime, he is devoting one third of his time to biogas.

Wood as a basis for the Canadian bioeconomy

However, there are few people remaining in Quebec who need convincing of the benefits of green energy. Quite the contrary. Samray really has a job on his hands: 97 percent of all electricity in Quebec already stems from sustainable sources. And almost all of these sources are liquid. The state-owned utility Hydro Quebec is the world's largest producer of electricity from hydropower. It may well be that, despite Samray’s ­efforts, biogas will never play a decisive energy role in the province. Nevertheless, it can be said with some confidence that the next evolution of the biogas plant – the biorefinery – will. This is all down to another of Quebec’s many treasures. Almost half of the province – and area twice the size of Germany – is covered with dense forest. The economic crisis in the US, which has reduced demand for lumber, the decline of newspapers, and the rise of the electronic book have all conspired to transform the former economic driving force into something of a lame horse. Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost, and in some areas sales have fallen by half.

Robert Sauvé, Quebec's Deputy Minister of Natural Resources, wants to shake up the industry and put it on a new biological footing. “We want to bring together the wood-processing industry and the chemical industry.” Wood will no longer only be used for planks and paper, but, aided by bacteria, the cellulose will also converted into high-quality materials for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Industry has responded in kind, and has founded FP Innovations, a kind of trans-Canadian Fraunhofer Society concentrated specifically on the timber sector. 280 companies – rare in a marketplace that is otherwise driven by fierce competition between the provinces – and eleven provincial governments are together funding a network, under whose roof several dozen research projects will be working towards the forestry of the future. In the scientists’ spotlight are, among other subjects, biogas production from pulp, the supply of nanocrystalline cellulose, and the utilisation of lignin.

Fungal enzymes assist in the digestion of cellulose

The ongoing economic crisis has given the initiative a new urgency. ‘Green chemistry’ also makes up one component of the most prestigious project in the history of Quebec: the ‘Plan Nord’. Presented with great aplomb several months ago by Prime Minister Jean Charet, the Generation Project outlines development plans for the huge area ­of land north of the 49th Parallel. Wood, minerals, energy will be exported from the north – naturally in as environmentally and socially responsible manner as possible. And there’s certainly no lack of ambition: Over a 25-year period, $80 billion Canadian dollars will be invested, with planned growth of 20,000 jobs per year. Sauvé has been substantially responsible for the development of the plan, and he is convinced that he is bringing the province into the 21st Century. “All of the pieces of the puzzle are in place.”

Adrian Tsang of Concordia University in Montreal embodies one important piece of this puzzle. His Centre for Structural and Functional Genomics has recently moved into a smart new building, where Tsang and his team are searching for enzymes that will help fungi in the utilisation and conversion of wood. The digestion of cellulose is key to the success of a biorefinery. Not long ago, in a highly read article in the journal Nature Biotechnology (online publication, 2011), Tsang presented a comparison of two fungi that can not only digest, but can also thrive at the high temperatures that prevail in biorefineries. The work is of great interest to German scientists. “This is one of the world's leading research groups,” says Ingo Morgenstern, who studied ecology in Freiburg, and is now studying for his doctorate at the centre.

A few hundred kilometres further west, rancher Korb Whale is happy to have this delegation of entrepreneurs and their concentrated German-flavoured biogas know-how on his farm. “Am I doing this right?” he asks repeatedly as he walks past yet-to-be-connected cables or freshly dug trenches. It’s also a chance for the experts to learn a thing or two. “Are there no pasteurisers anywhere here,” asks amazed Biogas member Rene Püschel from Weser-Ems. “Nope, that’s not really needed in these parts,” says her colleague. Here at least, the Canadians don’t always seem in such a hurry to copy the Germans.
© biotechnologie.de/cm

• Business Go West: German biogas industry on the Canadian Plains