Assessment of the influence of energy density and feedstock transport distance on the environmental performance of methane from maize silages

In Europe, thanks to public subsidy, the production of electricity from anaerobic digestion (AD) of agricultural feedstock has considerably grown and several AD plants were built. When AD plants are concentrated in specific areas (e.g., Northern Italy), increases of feedstock’ prices and transport distances can be observed. In this context, as regards low-energy density feedstock, the present research was designed to estimate the influence of the related long-distance transport on the environmental performances of the biogas-to-electricity process. For this purpose the following transport systems were considered: farm trailers and trucks. For small distances (< 5 km), the whole plant silage shows the lowest impact; however, when distances increase, silages with higher energy density (even though characterized by lower methane production per hectare) become more environmentally sustainable. The transport by trucks achieves better environmental performances especially for distances greater than 25 km.