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Episode 9: Vit Kettner from Revenium, SozialMarie winner in 2024 , Biogas plant
130 Plays5 months ago
In this episode, I speak with Vit Kettner from Revenium, a social business in Czechia dedicated to fostering social inclusion, diversity, and sustainability. Vit shares the journey behind his innovative garden biogas plant—a project that transforms organic waste into energy, inspired by the need to repurpose coffee roastery byproducts. We discuss the challenges he faced, the adaptability required to make the idea work, and the broader potential of small-scale biogas solutions. Vit’s story is a testament to the power of resourcefulness, persistence, and a clear vision—key ingredients for any impactful social innovation.
Jose Antonio Morales
Special thanks to Bea Babačová for her contribution to this episode.
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Transcript
Introduction to YYY Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to YYY podcast by Social Marie. Hi, everyone. After a long break, we are thrilled to be back with a brand new episode that promises to be both enlightening and inspiring. My name is Bea, and together with Jose, your host, we have very special guests joining us.
Meet Katner: Social Entrepreneur
00:00:17
Speaker
We welcome with Katner from Czech Republic, who is a remarkable individual working with social enterprise revenue um that helps people with disabilities, publishes a magazine and even runs a coffee roasting business. In today's episode, we will share his incredible journey and insights into how social innovation can be found even in waste management. Get ready to learn, be inspired and see the world of social innovation from a whole new perspective. So sit back, relax and let's dive into this exciting conversation with with Katner.
00:00:57
Speaker
Thank you. era It is great to be back. Dear listener, you're about to hear with story. This initiative was awarded by social Marie in 2024. And I'm sure you'll find many interesting clues to what makes social innovation so captivating and impactful.
Ravenium: A Model for Social Inclusion
00:01:14
Speaker
David, please tell us more about you. Hi, my name is Meet. I'm ah living in the Czech Republic. I'm 47 years old and I work for a company called Ravenium. The company is a social enterprise and it is running a small coffee roastery in the central Bohemia. Ravenium is a social business that operates a coffee roastery, along with ah many impactful initiatives. They focus on raising awareness about social inclusion, diversity, environmental sustainability, and many other important issues. True to their mission, about 90% of their team members are individuals with health disabilities. Pete, tell me more about your path.
00:02:03
Speaker
Before joining Revenu, I was working for the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs for the European Social Fund. And I was also shortly IT Head of Unit in Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University in Prague.
00:02:22
Speaker
Before interviewing Vid and learning about his award-winning initiative, I had to look into what a biogas plant actually is. Simply put, a biogas plant works like a digestive system, turning organic waste into gas. These gas can be used as energy for heating, cooling, and even cooking.
00:02:46
Speaker
How did your biogas idea come about?
Biogas Project Inspiration
00:02:50
Speaker
It all started when I was so joining a venue and I didn't know anything about the company and its activities. So I was visiting, I visited a coffee roastery to see how it works and how much coffee it produces and so on.
00:03:14
Speaker
And I ah i ah just met or I was looking at the some kind of waste from the coffee roastery, some kind of ah bio-reminance or green remnants from the coffee roastery. And and that is a kind of ah that is a part of coffee beans.
00:03:36
Speaker
that were not used. And I was asking i asked what is done with this kind of waste. And I realized that it's just the being um ah burned and nothing else. And that is why I was also thinking what to do with the by-waste.
00:04:11
Speaker
The idea was simple yet brilliant.
Overcoming Biogas Challenges
00:04:14
Speaker
Ferment the coffee roastery waste to produce the gas needed to roast the coffee. Sounds so amazing, right? We'd even secured approval from a bank to build a biogas plant in a small garage. But soon after building the biogas plant, we discovered that starting the fermentation process in the middle of the winter wasn't the best idea.
00:04:41
Speaker
Now I'm wondering how big is the biogas plant? This plant is um about ah for four and a half meters long and it is about two meters wide and it contains about 4000 liters of water mixed with ah manure.
00:05:04
Speaker
as ah as a basis and ah then it is once it is so activated with the manure ah then it is fed with the biowaste and it produces around ah two and a half cubic meters of biogas daily. That sounds like success! Were you able to use the biogas to roast the coffee?
00:05:33
Speaker
ah Well, and not exactly, because I didn't know that the coffee machine roaster coffeefi o the machine is run with a different kind of gas. In the beginning it was run on methane, which is a natural gas, but then it was changed into propane gas.
00:05:55
Speaker
This is a different molecule, so I didn't i couldn't really make use of the gas in the in this ah in in our ah contemporary roaster machine. so ah That was a pity, but I was also thinking about other usage of the biogas, for example, in the restaurant nearby restaurant,
00:06:23
Speaker
A coffee roastery is a part of a larger building where we ah are at present reconstructing the the the area and their restaurant and some could accommodation space. So partly it could be used for heating well the room with the coffee roastery or the restaurant or the kitchen.
00:06:49
Speaker
The question that keeps coming to my mind is about the scalability of this idea. For instance, I know I produce plenty of bio waste while working in my garden and orchard. I normally compost it, but I guess that the gas produced during the process just escapes and used into the atmosphere. But would it be fair to say that scaling this project should be relatively straightforward?
00:07:18
Speaker
Yes, it's possible to connect ah two or three. If you have enough space, you can connect two or three or more ah these garden biogas plants and you can make more biogas.
00:07:37
Speaker
um Just for comparison, I am living in a house which has ah average consumption of natural gas. It's about two and a half ah cubic meters per day. But it is ah average consumption because it's ah it has been measured to ah throughout the whole year. And um during winter, of course, it's much higher.
00:08:05
Speaker
ah but the highest consumption was about 7.5 cubic meters of ah natural gas. so it's so not the The production from the one garden biogas plant is not enough to heat throughout the heating season. It is so interesting to see that in the winter, when there is more need for biogas for heating living spaces,
00:08:35
Speaker
the production of biogas lowers because the cold holds the fermentation process. That's why I was also solving or i was thinking about how to how to accumulate the biogas plant during the spring and summer season and then make use of the accumulated biogas during a winter season. So it was one kind of challenge that I was also trying to solve and I we ah Realized that the technology for accumulating the gas is existing however, it is quite right expensive and Economically speaking it does not make much sense to invest into the accumulation of biogas throughout the summer because of the price of the natural gas and
00:09:37
Speaker
I asked Diett why biogas plants like the one he operates are in more common. He explained that while these plants could work almost everywhere, there are some important factors that need to be considered. You need adequate space for the plant. Not all biowaste is efficient for biogas production, so having a clear strategy is essential before starting. The economics of biogas storage can be challenging,
00:10:08
Speaker
The biogas production ah relies on the right temperature, as we mentioned before. So fermentation doesn't work in cold areas. And also maintaining the biogas plants requires time and dedication.
Impact of Geopolitical Events on Energy
00:10:25
Speaker
Later on,
00:10:26
Speaker
I asked Viet, what was the original problem he wanted to solve with a biogas plant? And also if he checked if there is a local competition. When the war against Ukraine was launched and so gas prices and the but very high. So I was also thinking about how it could be solved and how we could make some gas locally from local resources.
00:10:58
Speaker
in a renewable way and of course by the motivation to to find and find a suitable solution. And i I knew that there there are large biogas plants run in the Czech Republic. wena They do not accumulate the biogas but they clean it and they burn it in a so-called co-generation unit.
00:11:22
Speaker
so They produce ah so simultaneously they produce electricity and heat. With the heat they ah provide the heat to local residential areas and then they part of the heat they put it back to the fermenter, to the production process of the bagasse.
00:11:42
Speaker
and they also produce electricity. But the these large, large pile gas plants, they are quite costly and they they consume a lot of bio waste, or not bio waste, maybe some kind of Corn ah has to be planted to be fed into the buggers plant, large buggers plant, and the the plantation of corn or some kind of ah bio material, it can degrade the the soil. even Even though the byproduct of the buggers plant is a fertilizer,
00:12:27
Speaker
and you can fertilize the plants ah and supporter support this way their growth. In fact, the the physical physical characteristics and five physical features of the over the soil well are not so and maintained properly, so the soil can degrade.
00:12:54
Speaker
How was the reception of your initiative ah with the general public?
Recognition and Awards for Innovation
00:12:58
Speaker
Well, the reactions were ah very, very positive. And by the way, we also won a prize, a first prize for an innovative ah company, a social enterprise. In Czech, it's called Zlata Vážka Golden Dragonfly. And it was the first place for an innovative company.
00:13:22
Speaker
for this project. so quite The reactions were quite they were great for us. so We received publicity and so I think that the project was quite successful. successful Would you dare to explain the entire project in two words? The first word is renew renewable. You can renew waste, so you can get energy. So renewable energy would be the best description of the project, or renewable energy. But there are also social consequences of the project, and um that' that would need much more words to describe the project.
00:14:07
Speaker
local local renewable energy. So local local re energy. Would you say that your project is generating more opportunities? Absolutely. I i acquired and I got some empirical data.
00:14:24
Speaker
I met many new people thanks to the project. I learned something that I ah had not known before, before the project. So I was um getting experience in empirical data. did that This is something that couldn't exist before we ah big um without the project.
00:14:50
Speaker
and I also have an idea how to make use of this experience so to establish a ah business company and ah to make you make some further gains from the experience I got. So it's how ah it has some other consequences ah beside the Vargas. For me personally, brought me on quite um it enlarged my social network
00:15:33
Speaker
Did you make the biogas plant all by yourself? And also please tell me, what do you think the innovation for this project was? I was working with ah with my ah colleagues in the revenue who helped me to to ah install the unit and feed it and maintain it. And then then I was so in contact with a company that is maintaining large biogas plants and they were helping helping me to ah measure the quality of the biogas.
00:16:08
Speaker
ss and evaluate the filtration mechanism. the filtration system that I added to the plant. So and the project itself was no was not innovative in the way that I have built something really new from scratch, but I ah i was able to cut some existing existing appliances and
00:16:40
Speaker
To combine them in an appropriate way, so the so there is ah quite an added value in the combination of existing products and in a new way of using them. When I asked Viet about his motivation, he shared that he ah sees fossil fuels as a significant issue and he wants to address it. He also said that as non-renewable resources, they pose a really long-term challenge for every household.
00:17:09
Speaker
which determination is very inspiring for me. So I ask him, what would he say to any aspiring social innovator?
Advice for Aspiring Innovators
00:17:19
Speaker
I would like to tell not to give up in during the learning process because even if you fail,
00:17:31
Speaker
ah then it is ah quite an important experience that you learn because ah when you fail, you know something that you hadn't known before, the this experience. So it's not it's important not to give up and to prosper from the from the experience, on so from the from the learning. It's important. So even even though the project the the social projects may be sometimes problematic because of not returning the money back, then they provide useful experience. And even if you if you come nowhere, then you know at least that
00:18:21
Speaker
You are nowhere and you have to come back, for example. And that's it's knowledge. so And this experience and knowledge is very valuable.
Closing Thoughts
00:18:43
Speaker
We hope you found our chat with Whit Kettner from Revenuum as fascinating as we did. There is a lot from his work that can help others to build social innovations that are sustainable. Jose, what stood out to you the most from Whit's story today?
00:18:58
Speaker
What stood out to me the most about its story his strife is This to me is the true spirit of entrepreneurship. Despite many unexpected challenges during the implementation of the biogas plant, he stayed on track, kept learning and adapted all along the way. and ah But there's something even more inspiring to me.
00:19:21
Speaker
Viet clearly defined the problem, identified an existing solution, and secured recognition for his work. His resourcefulness play ah played a crucial role here. And his commitment to making the project ah truly sustainable is remarkable. If there's one lesson we can take from its journey, it's that clarity and determination are key to turning ideas into lasting impact.
00:19:56
Speaker
As we wrap up, remember this is just the start of many more engaging episodes. Stay tuned for more stories that will challenge your perspective and inspire action. Until next time, take care and keep innovating. Bye!