5th RedBioLAC Conference in Honduras

The yearly meeting of RedBioLAC took place this year from October 14th – 19th. Host of this year’s event was the Zamorano Pan-American Agricultural School (Zamorano University) in Honduras.

The seminar started with a short but intensive course about biogas technologies, which was held during the first two days. The course provided the participants with basic tools for the design of biogas systems, for thermal needs and the supply of electric power. It combined both theoretical knowledge as well as empirical findings from experts with a long record in designing, installing and monitoring biogas systems. During one day of field visits the participants had the opportunity to appraise actual applications of the technology in different kinds of agricultural systems.
During the last two days more than 20 experts presented the latest advances in crucial research topics as well as practical applications of anaerobic digestion to meet energy related needs in Latin-America and the Caribbean.

Some key challenges for the future development of the technology in the region emerged during the expositions and discussions: Understanding the actual value of digestates as fertilizer, validating the applicability of anaerobic digestion for ‘non-agricultural’ sectors (like the treatment of sewage and the organic fraction of municipal wastes) and accelerating the diffusion of biogas technologies among large agro-industrial sectors of the region, which still have huge potentials in terms of optimizing the treatment of their effluents and wastes.
Most of the materials shared by the speakers during the event are available at the online library of the Network [in spanish]: Presentaciones curso introductorio al biogas 2013