Green cheese power

Valgo Fromagerie
France (Albertville)

The idea of transforming organic dairy waste into biogas is not a novel one, but this is certainly the cheesiest.

 

Cheeseboard fans can turn their noses up at this fromage fact: France’s favourite food spawns a waste issue.

When milk coagulates to make cheese, it separates into solids (curds), with 90% of it becoming liquids (whey), which need to be disposed of. Rich in carbon and minerals such as phosphorous and nitrogen, whey can throw off the natural equilibrium of the ecosystem, leading to oxygen deprivation in fish if dumped in rivers.

While large cheese companies invest in solutions that process whey into food supplement WPC (whey protein concentrate) or whey powder for use in sports drinks and sports bars, for smaller cheesemakers it’s a case of ‘no whey!’ as this isn’t financially realistic.

A fromagerie power plant has been built in the French Alps by bioenergy company Valgo (originally Valbio) to generate ‘clean’ electricity from fermented cheese – and help smaller cheesemakers do the same.

In Albertville, known for having hosted the 1992 Winter Olympics, they add bacteria to the whey by-product of Beaufort cheese, which causes it to ferment and create a biogas (a mix of carbon dioxide and methane). The gas is fed through an engine that heats water, which then creates electricity.

“Whey is our fuel,” Valgo’s Francois Decker told Le Parisien newspaper when the station opened in October 2015. He estimates the plant should generate around 2.8 million kilowatt hours per year – enough for a community of 2,000 people.

Valgo built its first prototype plant 16 years ago. Since then, another twenty or so smaller cheese-fuelled plants have been built in Europe and Canada and they are planning more units in Australia, Italy, Brazil and Uruguay.

AtlasAction: Learn more about the French company that gives new life to polluted sites and soils.

Written by

Lisa Goldapple, Editor, Atlas of the Future (02 February 2020)

Project leader

Francois Decker & Yvon Brochet

Support the Atlas

We want the Atlas of the Future media platform and our event to be available to everybody, everywhere for free – always. Fancy helping us spread stories of hope and optimism to create a better tomorrow? For those able, we'd be grateful for any donation.

Creative Commons License

Comments

 

Take me somewhere
Close
Take me somewhere
Close
Data Protection Act: LOPD.
In compliance with Organic Law 15/1999, of 13 of December, on Personal Data Protection, and the development of Rules of Procedure, approved by Royal Decree 1720/2007, of 21 of December, Atlas of the Future subscribers may be required to provide Personal Data, which will be included in a file owned by Democratising The Future Society SL. Such file is duly incorporated in the Spanish Data Protection Agency and protected in compliance with the security measures established in the applicable legislation. Subscribers may exercise, at any time, their rights of access, rectification, cancellation and/or opposition regarding their Personal Data. The subscriber shall notice their will, either under written form addressed to Democratising The Future Society SL, Ref. LOPD, Calabria, 10 6-3 08015 - Barcelona (Spain) and/or by e-mail, clicking here. Also, the subscriber shall communicate Atlas of the Future any modifications of their Personal Data stored, so that the information stored by Atlas of the Future remains at all times updated and error-free.
Close
Get World-changing projects and news in your inbox weekly.