Country: Mexico
School/ organization: Instituto Escuela del Sur
Delegation leader/ teacher: Carmen Larrondo Sayavedra
Students: Sofía Arriaga Galicia, Ana Paula Marín González, Nicolás Moreno Torres, Natalia Moscoso Lomnitz, Luis Félix Olivares Herrera, Samuel Palacios De La Mora.
Partner organization: SUEMA S.A. de C.V.
Project title: Obtaining biogas from cactae (Opuntia ficus-indica) in Mexico
The term biogas describes gas fuel produced by means of the decomposition of organic matter, generating 95% less greenhouse effect gas emissions than oil, besides the resultant biomass works as biofertilizer.
Instituto Escuela del Sur alumni, visited two biogas plants that use cactae (Opuntia ficus-indica) -an endemic plant of the American continent, used for medical, gastronomical and cosmetic purposes- as a substrate in our country: one plant in Zitácuaro, Michoacán, and the other one in Mexico City.
Zitácuaro biogas plant (Manjar del Campo), produces methane gas from eight tons of crushed cactae for the manufacture of their tortillas, their own electricity & finally, fertilizer for the cactae crops that they grow. The Mexico City plant holds a gathering center: a market that generates up to 10 tons p/day, by collecting only the residues of the cactae peeling. SUEMA (Sustentabilidad en Energía y Medio Ambiente S, A de C.V.) company, handles and transmutes the residues to turn them into methane, which, at the end of the process, feeds the plant and 25% of the market with luminous energy.
That's a really good project!