Agro advances to say goodbye to diesel and manufacture its own biofuel

Diesel oil consumed by tractors, trucks and harvesters is one of the inputs that weigh most heavily on the cost sheet of Brazilian farmers, accounting for up to 30% of harvest expenses. The war in Ukraine and the instability of the fossil fuel market have only increased this account. “I am 64 years old and for the first time in my life I see the price of diesel being more expensive than gasoline”, says Fábio Pimentel de Barros, partner-owner of the SF Agropecuária pig farm in Brasilândia, in Mato Grosso do Sul.

The price of fuel, however, no longer keeps Barros up at night. He took the lead and could become the first Brazilian producer to declare independence from diesel oil. The waste from the pig farm already produced biogas to generate electricity. Now, the gas goes through yet another stage of transformation, and adding value, through the separation of methane, which is used to move a 180 horsepower New Holland tractor. Barros is the first farmer in the country to buy the T6 180 Methane Power model, which reduces pollutant emissions by up to 80% compared to a standard diesel engine.

Apart from the environmental benefits of using biomethane – getting rid of a liability of excrement, producing organic fertilizer and sequestering a powerful greenhouse gas – the economic result speaks for itself. Starting with eligibility for decarbonization credits from the Renovabio program, which distributors are obliged to buy. But also in the direct financial comparison between biomethane and diesel oil.

Savings close to 90% compared to diesel

“The price of a liter of diesel oil and a cubic meter of gas (CNG) at the pump are equivalent. But due to the reduced consumption of the methane-powered tractor, you already have a 40% advantage. Only the gas is here, I’ll sell it to myself. And the price of gas produced on the farm is just R$1 per cubic meter. Hence the economic advantage becomes 90%”, underlines Barros.

Biomethane, therefore, would be “three times more advantageous” in terms of economy than biogas itself, used in the generation of electricity.

Barros invested around R$ 1 million in the purchase of the New Holland T6 tractor, powered by biomethane, whose prototypes had been being tested in the country for six years. To make technological innovation viable, however, the businessman had to set up his own gas station. In this case, a compact natural gas purification and compression station developed in partnership between New Holland and the companies Sebigas Cotica (biodigester installation), Air Liquide (biogas purification) and FPT (electricity cogenerator gas engine).

Joint ventures like this have already taken place in Europe, where biomethane technology is more mature, but they had never reached the scale reduction achieved in Brazil, nor an integrated solution. While here the station can already be moved with a production of 50 m3 of gas per hour, in Europe the minimum required usually varies between 1,000 and 5,000 m3 per hour. This opens up the possibility that the technology for generating energy and fuel itself, already used by giants such as Raízen, will also reach thousands of pig farmers, poultry farmers, dairy and beef cattle breeders.

Smaller scale biostation multiplies methane potential

“It is unlike anywhere else in the world. This solution previously lacked scale and was not integrated. If you wanted to have such equipment, you had to buy a purification system and a compression system and interconnect them according to your own logic. Here we have everything integrated, in a viable, safe and robust way for the rural producer”, says Caio Mogyca, Air Liquide’s development director for South America.

The reduction in scale represents democratization and the supply of biomethane throughout the country, in the opinion of Alessandro Garnemann, president of the Brazilian Association of Biogas (Abiogas).

“It’s circular economy in the vein, it adds the replacement of expensive fuels like diesel and LPG, bringing energy security. We cannot forget that biomethane was regulated not even five years ago. And just the infrastructure project, and its development, takes two to three years. The offer of the gas tractor is the great proof of the viability and importance of this fuel. I think the whole cycle is closing, there is technology, there is raw material available, there is equipment available. Now reference projects are emerging, such as the one that New Holland inaugurated”, emphasizes Garnemann.

The investment by the pioneer producer from Mato Grosso do Sul in the station was R$ 1.7 million, which should be paid for in two to four years, due to the economy with diesel. At the same time, the businessman started a project to replace trucks with gas-powered models. Biomethane has the same specification and is equivalent to natural gas extracted from petroleum.

Biomethane could replace 70% of diesel

There are currently more than a thousand biogas plants in the country, primarily used for power generation. This places the country in fifth place in the world in this market, behind Germany, China, the United States and Italy. Despite this, Brazil uses only 3% of the organic raw materials available for the production of renewable gas, such as animal manure, discards from slaughterhouses and agricultural residues. If the full potential were used, it would be possible to replace 70% of the national consumption of diesel oil.

The challenge now is to expand this biomethane ecosystem. Which depends both on the word of mouth of the producers and on the encouragement of governments and entities to adopt the technology. According to Abiogás, there are 41 plant projects that should take off by 2027, increasing current production, from 400,000 m3 daily, to almost 3 million.

“Expectations are the best possible. This is not just a tractor, but an entire ecosystem. Technology we already have. The potential is huge in terms of sustainability, replacing fossil fuels, energy self-sufficiency”, says Claudio Calaça, market director for New Holland in Brazil.

*The journalist traveled at the invitation of New Holland.