This is why we are launching this second stage

This is a first world. A unit was opened by the Poitou-Charentes region and group Séché environment pilot production of biofuels based on algae grown from household waste from gas. The installation is located on the centre for storage and treatment of waste of the Vigeant, in the South of the Vienna, operated by a subsidiary of Séché environment, SVO Eco-industry group. This site, which extends over 27 hectares, receives every year 150,000 m3 waste non-hazardous household and industrial, for a total storage of 5 million tons. SVO initiated a policy of development of the site in August 2008, the equipping of two generators powered by biogas that releases the fermentation of waste and produce each 1.5 megawatts per year, or the consumption of a town of 11,000 people. Installation any fairly conventional sum today, but that designers perfected, because of cogeneration to use the heat generated by the generators was not possible. "Given that we are in the open countryside, explains Thierry soil, SVO, responsible for the heat from the engines is lost, while in urban areas it would have been used to supply heating facilities." This is why we are launching this second stage.

Thus, the pilot unit just be commissioning consists of freshwater pools where are grown of microalgae. The resulting heat generators heat the water, while co is injected. Result, the operation promotes the growth of algae, which are also fed by nitrogenous waste. Algae are then processed to give oil or sugar that allow to develop an eco-fuel. "Microalgae have a very high fat content, of 40, and higher plants such as oilseed rape 30 times returns," said Jacques regional Barber, Director of the laboratory Valagro, research centre for industrial development of the agro, which has developed the method and used patents.

Triple advantage

The experimental phase underway will determine the varieties of algae best suited and validate the industrial use of the process. The Group dried officials hope to go to production on a large scale from 2010. The construction of this pilot unit is the fruit of a partnership between the dried and the Charentes region, which leads a proactive policy in the field of eco-industries and is responsible for the research program. Are 500,000 euros has been invested in the project, including 250,000 in provenance of Oseo and 70,000 in the region. Eventually, it will be millions of euros to be invested in the Vigeant. "The production of fuel from microalgae triple advantage, apart from that of the recovery of waste, find Ségolène Royal. Cultures of algae will absorb all of the heat produced by the generators, to recycling of the CO2 to combat climate change, finally this method, unlike traditional techniques of plant biofuel production, does not compete with food production. "However, the Poitou-Charentes region is also engaged in the construction of a plant for biodiesel from oil seeds which should enter into service in the fall of La Rochelle and Ségolène Royal announced that an industrial textile waste from bioethanol production will be installed to Melle (Deux-Sèvres) in the coming months.

Dried environment, based on changed, near Laval, is the number three French of the treatment of waste. The group manages about 20 sites and employs 1,500 employees with a turnover of EUR 380 million.