Presentation short abstract

The quality of narratives about full-scale biomethane deployment in Catalonia, Spain, is contrasted against quantitative evidence. The paper reveals territorial distributional imbalances that perpetuate rural areas as energy colonies and landfills subordinated to large consumption centres.

Presentation long abstract

Biomethane has been promoted by the EU and governments to play a key role in the energy transition to a decarbonised future: a flexible renewable energy carrier suitable for heating, electricity generation and transport; able to substitute natural gas and reduce external energy dependency, as well as to foster circular economy by closing the nutrient cycle.

On other side, environmental and civil society organizations argue that large-scale biogas infrastructure risks to lock in unsustainable livestock practices, increasing the burden over local infrastructure, and generating digestate surpluses that threaten soil and water quality.

Against this backdrop, this study investigates the societal implications of a full-scale implementation of biomethane production using Catalonia as a case study.

The main narratives in favour and against large-scale biomethane deployment are identified, indicators derived from the narratives are evaluated, and narratives are confronted with quantitative evidence.

The results are mapped at the county level and reveal territorial imbalances perpetuating rural areas as energy colonies and landfills subordinated to large consumption centres. Also, there would be a shift from dependence on fossil gas imports to plant-based protein imports, and an increasing burden on rural territories due to a significant increase in heavy-duty traffic, and large quantities of digestate produced in municipalities already declared Nitrate Vulnerable Zones.

This conflict seems to be the recurrence of the center-periphery conflict, in which the opposition to supposedly clean and renewable energies seems to be about maintaining local control on landscape use, and are related to distributional, procedural and recognitional injustices.