"Do you agree that the Moià Town Council should promote the urban planning modification of the land in the Castellnou plan for the expansion of the slaughterhouse and the construction of the biogas plant?" This was the question that residents over the age of 16 in this municipality in the Moianès region were asked to answer this Sunday in a non-binding public consultation. With a 30% turnout, 1,487 residents voted against the projects, 151 in favor, 14 abstained, and 11 cast invalid ballots. The platform "Por un Moià Viu" (For a Living Moià), which called for a "no" vote, believes that "the will of the people is clear" in rejecting the expansion of the slaughterhouse and the biogas plant, and points out that they surpassed the 1,451 votes cast for Ara Moià. The party linked to ERC, which governs with a majority, has not taken all the necessary steps. It is the only way to regularize the industrial park and, therefore, save the companies currently located there, but environmentalists and the opposition disagree and believe there are other options.

In 2024, the Catalan government approved the Catalan biogas strategy 2024-2030 and its action plan, which is part of Catalonia's transition to a new, cleaner, more sustainable, democratic and fair energy model, aiming to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. The goal is to define and consolidate the sector by 2030.

In the context of the energy transition and environmental crisis we have been experiencing for years, the United Nations COP28 Climate Summit held in 2023 agreed to promote the reduction of fossil fuels to combat climate change and transition to renewable energies. Catalonia is committed to biogas and biomethane to reduce emissions, move towards energy independence, and promote a more sustainable circular economy.

After three years of procedures, the urban plan to build a macro biogas plant in Sentiu de Sió (Noguera) has received the green light from the Barcelona Urban Planning Commission. It is the largest facility of its kind in southern Europe—it will process around 500,000 tons annually—and could be the first in a wave of biogas factories in Ponent, as part of the rollout of the Catalan Biogas Strategy 2024-2030. However, both the approval of the urban plan and the possibility of more factories proliferating have sparked outrage among some thirty mayors in the region, who are standing firm against the project and have announced they will challenge it in court. Despite the silence of the Generalitat (Catalan Government), the mayors warn that the factory will not be able to operate solely with local slurry and that, in practice, it is a black hole for the Danish investment fund leading it—Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners—to do business with waste that will come either from Aragon or the province of Barcelona. This waste includes animal remains and slaughterhouse waste, and not just slurry.

ERC is championing the right to decide, but in Moià, where it governs with an absolute majority, it is putting every possible obstacle in the way of its residents voting on whether they want the slaughterhouse expansion and the installation of a biogas plant. On May 21, the municipal government refused to admit the consultation to promote the 200 residents in the town hall square.

The controversial Nova Tracjusa project in Juneda (Garrigues), which aims to gasify urban waste as the main source of heat to dry excess slurry from pig farms, has now passed the final administrative process. After receiving all the environmental and planning authorizations, the City Council has now granted the final construction permit. GAP, the cooperative of 160 livestock farmers in the region, associated with the Griñó Group, can begin executing its project.