BioEnergy in Lommel, Belgium

An example of how environmentalprogress can be made by recycling, purifying, enhancing andtransforming all aspects of existing production and distributionprocesses.

The basic idea:deliver the waste (peelings and starch residues) of the productionprocess to a remote energy plant via an innovative underground pipingsystem. There, convert them into green electricity and purified waterthat can be returned to the production process, and into biologicalfertilizers of value in the potato growing process. It’s all done usinghighly sophisticated fermentation technology, leading to biogasproduction which in turn powers motors.

The result:within a month of introduction we were producing enough electricity tosupply an equivalent of 12.000 homes. We were delivering 100.000 cubicmetres of purified water and 30.000 megawatts of heat straight back toour primary production processes. We had eliminated more than 3000annual truck movements, with all their associated emissions. TheBioEnergy project is a huge success, and the inspiration for anambitious, wide ranging environmental policy.