Ticino Biomasa — A Town Powered by Peanut Shells

Ticino is a small town in Argentina’s peanut country, and peanut processing leaves mountains of shells. Instead of treating the shells as waste, a local company built a power plant that burns them: the shells raise steam, the steam drives a turbine, and the turbine makes electricity — enough for far more households than the town itself holds. When Argentina’s national grid went dark in country-wide blackouts, Ticino kept its lights on.

At a glance Origin: Ticino, Córdoba, Argentina · Maturity: a commercial plant running since 2018 · Scale: about 3.5–4.63 MW; serves ~6 000 families · Licence: the plant is a private asset; the underlying idea is open.

The story, and why it’s here. This is a Lane 3 story because it is an industrial plant owned by a peanut-processing company, not a village build. What makes it worth telling is the move at its heart — turning a locally abundant crop residue into reliable power — and the resilience that came with it: the plant generates in the range of about 3.5 to 4.63 MW (reports differ), consumes roughly 3.5 tonnes of shells an hour, and produces enough for about 6 000 families, in a town of about 3 000 people. During Argentina’s 2019 and 2023 national blackouts it kept Ticino supplied.

What to take from it — honestly. The transferable idea is matching a power plant to a local waste stream — peanut shells here, but rice husk, sawmill offcuts or bagasse elsewhere. That idea scales down in principle; this particular plant does not, because it is industrial and capital-intensive. Burning biomass is lower-carbon only when the residue would otherwise rot or be burned anyway, and it is not emission-free. The capacity and reach figures come from reporting and the company, not from an independent audit.

Who made it. Generación Ticino Biomasa, part of the peanut company Lorenzati, Ruetsch y Cía, with Diego Menta named as its environmental coordinator and Fabio Bruschini as president.

Seen a plant like this — a local crop residue turned into power? Tell us how it went — what residue, how steady the supply was, how reliable the power proved, what you’d change, and roughly where and when. We want the honest result, including what didn’t work. Your contact details stay private; we read and check every report before anything is published, and we’ll never publish a detail you’ve asked us to keep private.

Sources: Argentine and Latin-American reporting on Generación Ticino Biomasa — Infobae (infobae.com, 2023) and Mongabay Latam (es.mongabay.com, 2026).