Until the 1960s, methane fracking led to widespread land subsidence in the Polesine in northeastern Italy. While this form of methane extraction has since been banned, the region today is a site for expanding and developing biomethane production through the anaerobic fermentation of animal waste. Based on ethnographic research around biomethane facilities in the region, this article traces how a diverse and messy array of animal substances is rendered through industrial logics into stable and purified energy. Drawing on literature from multispecies anthropology and food-system studies, this article unfolds through three microbially saturated vantage points: the proxy discourses used by biomethane entrepreneurs promoting renewable energy solutions; the experiences of rural residents navigating uncertain environmental exposures; and the leaks from containment architectures that purport to separate farmed animal matter from their wider surroundings. In so doing, it examines the implications of the shifting distinctions drawn between edibility and inedibility, safety and toxicity, value and waste, in the name of a European energy transition.
Mariachiara Ficarelli (Thu,) studied this question.