Carbon footprints for food and traffic are a hot topic that touches everyone in Finland.
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Traffic is the source of a fifth of Finland’s greenhouse emissions, and milk’s share of the emissions hovers around four percent.
We are in need of new ways to control climate change.
Valio, the food company, and Gasum, the energy company, intend to find solutions to the climate challenge together: cow manure can be used to generate biogas, which can replace fossil fuels used in transportation.
This new statement of intent serves to initiate an investigation into an appropriate cooperation model.
Valio, owned by Finnish dairy farms, wants to reduce its milk chain’s carbon footprint to zero by 2035.
This ambitious goal can be reached, especially, in two ways: binding more atmospheric carbon dioxide in grass fields and generating biogas from manure to replace fossil fuels.
Finland produces roughly 15 million tonnes of manure every year, making it an interesting raw material for larger-scale biogas production.
Currently, the market has not taken off, as using manure in biogas production is not profitable in Finland.
In other Nordic countries, government subsidies make it possible to use manure as both an ingredient for biogas and as recycled fertiliser, enabling a better nutrient cycle.
Finland’s Ministry of Transport and Communications published an action plan in December 2018, outlining the changes in Finland’s transportation towards 100% renewable fuel by 2045.
One solution is to increase the share of renewable fuels, such as biogas.
At the same time, Finland’s government has set a goal to have 50% of our farms’ manure to be recycled by 2025.
The manner of Valio and Gasum’s cooperation will be detailed over the course of this year.
One option is to build a shared biogas plant, or a network of several plants.
All the while, Valio and Gasum are continuing to design their shared plant at Nivala, in Finland’s Ostrobothnia region.
An investment decision on the Nivala plant has not yet been made, and the project is in the planning stages. ■