Energy from biogas: a real opportunity for territory and zootechnical farms in the province of Foggia (Italy)

In the last years, the Italian energy-environmental situation has been characterized by the development of renewable resources into the energy system, thanks to the adoption of new tools for their promotion, according to European Community goals. Among theses, vegetal and animal biomass represents a resource of great interest for the agricultural and zootechnical world, above all local, thanks to the various economic and environmental effects deriving from its transformation in energy. In this context, the province of Foggia, a northern area of the Apulia Region, due to its agro-zootechnical vocation, seems designated to become a suitable area in which to create a bio-energetic district, able to allow the development of biomass use, through a diversification and modernization of the agricultural and zootechnical sector. The present paper intends to focus on potential production of energy from biogas deriving from anaerobic digestion of zootechnical effluents available in the territory; this is to evaluate the economic and environmental future feasibility. From the results of the analysis, it seems clear that good potentialities of biogas production in some specified areas exist, and in these areas a fair number of intensive breeding zootechnical farms are located. Consequently, these farms could take advantage of the opportunity, offered by the energy and environmental national policy (Legislative Decree 387/2003 and Legislative Decree 152/2006), in order to integrate their own business activity, reduce internal energy costs, those of zootechnical effluents disposal and, on the whole, contribute to the decrease of fossil fuel use and its impact on the atmosphere in the province of Foggia.