<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>In order to address existing and foreseen climate change and environmental challenges, the European Commission has adopted a set of proposals as part of the European Green Deal to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and become the first climate-neutral continent in the world. In the energy sector it is planned to implement specific actions to increase the contribution from renewable sources of energy. Livestock manure as a renewable resource can be processed to produce biogas through anaerobic digestion processes. This study aimed to estimate the amount of livestock manure potentially available for biogas production in Latvia based on statistical information on the number of animals representing current and past trends, and forecasts for the future provided by the results of the Latvian Agricultural Sector Analysis Model (LASAM).</p>
<p>The results of this study showed that the share of livestock manure processed to produce biogas has increased considerably during the time period from 2010 to 2019 in all groups of livestock considered for this application in Latvia. However, there are still opportunities to increase the share of manure utilised for anaerobic digestion, especially in the livestock groups of dairy cows and non-dairy cows, as only 16% and 13% of the available amount of manure was processed in 2019, respectively. The LASAM results indicate that the number of animals will experience negligible changes or will decrease; therefore, more attention will need to be paid to increase the efficiency of processing the existing amount of manure rather than relying on an additional amount of manure available for biogas production.</p>
</abstract>

In order to address existing and foreseen climate change and environmental challenges, the European Commission has adopted a set of proposals as part of the European Green Deal to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and become the first climate-neutral continent in the world. In the energy sector it is planned to implement specific actions to increase the contribution from renewable sources of energy. Livestock manure as a renewable resource can be processed to produce biogas through anaerobic digestion processes. This study aimed to estimate the amount of livestock manure potentially available for biogas production in Latvia based on statistical information on the number of animals representing current and past trends, and forecasts for the future provided by the results of the Latvian Agricultural Sector Analysis Model (LASAM).
The results of this study showed that the share of livestock manure processed to produce biogas has increased considerably during the time period from 2010 to 2019 in all groups of livestock considered for this application in Latvia. However, there are still opportunities to increase the share of manure utilised for anaerobic digestion, especially in the livestock groups of dairy cows and non-dairy cows, as only 16% and 13% of the available amount of manure was processed in 2019, respectively. The LASAM results indicate that the number of animals will experience negligible changes or will decrease; therefore, more attention will need to be paid to increase the efficiency of processing the existing amount of manure rather than relying on an additional amount of manure available for biogas production.

Present and Future Availability of Livestock Manure for Biogas Production in Latvia

Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies

Rural Sustainability Research

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

In order to address existing and foreseen climate change and environmental challenges, the European Commission has adopted a set of proposals as part of the...

Present and Future Availability of Livestock Manure for Biogas Production in Latvia

Published Online: Oct 13, 2022

Page range: 1 - 7

Received: Dec 23, 2021

Accepted: Jun 27, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/plua-2022-0001

Keywords
renewable energy, biogas production, livestock manure, forecast

© 2022 Ainis Lagzdins, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Present and Future Availability of Livestock Manure for Biogas Production in Latvia

Published Online: Oct 13, 2022

Page range: 1 - 7

Received: Dec 23, 2021

Accepted: Jun 27, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/plua-2022-0001

Keywordsrenewable energy, biogas production, livestock manure, forecast

© 2022 Ainis Lagzdins, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
renewable energy, biogas production, livestock manure, forecast