• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
‘LET’S SUE BIG OIL’: Legal Team Launches Class Action Campaign for B.C. Municipalities June 17, 2022
‘It Could Have Been Any of Us’, Colleague Says, After Brazil Confirms Murders of Bruno Pereira, Dom Phillips June 17, 2022
Infrastructure Gap a ‘Life and Death’ Matter as Northern Canada Warms June 17, 2022
Ban Fossil Fuel Ads Like Tobacco Promos, Doctors Urge Ottawa June 10, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate News Network

Useful waste offers win-win benefits

February 2, 2016
Reading time: 4 minutes
Primary Author: Paul Brown

What a waste: Rotting cabbages

What a waste: Rotting cabbages

 

An unsung success story in the switch to renewable energy is the use of waste to produce gas – and a valuable by-product.

LONDON, 2 February, 2016 – The future is increasingly bright for renewable energy, with the US aiming to cut the price of solar photovoltaics by 75% between 2010 and 2020. Denmark plans to obtain 50% of its energy from wind just five years from now.

But one form of renewable energy – and one which attracts few headlines – manages to create two useful products at the same time, and is making a growing contribution to combatting climate change.

The medieval alchemists who sought to turn base metal into gold would have thrilled at   chemistry that let them turn waste into both fuel and fertiliser. Their twenty-first century successors have discovered the secret of doing exactly that. 

Unwanted food, animal waste, municipal rubbish, crop and forestry residues, sewage and dozens of other left-overs of civilisation can and are now being turned into methane to generate electricity, provide district heating and to fuel road vehicles.

Big contribution

This largely unheralded revolution takes different forms across the world, mostly because governments set their own rules to encourage the technology, and also because local circumstances provide contrasting piles of waste. But in every case the waste can be converted into gas for use as fuel.

Although the technology is only part of the solution to climate change, the European Biogas  Association estimates that over time it should be able to replace 30% of current natural gas consumption in Europe.

The technology is roughly the same whatever the size of the plant or its location. Biogas plants use microbes to eat waste in an oxygen-free environment to produce methane, and leave fertiliser or soil conditioner as a useful by-product. The plants vary from small household types, very popular in China and India, to farm plants and larger-scale municipal installations in Europe.

Poor relation

The potential of wind and solar power for replacing coal to produce electricity is familiar;  the biogas revolution is hardly recognised. The first report on biogas produced by the International Gas Union went virtually unreported.

Yet its details included, for example: “One bag of food waste composted to biogas is enough to power a gas-driven car for almost two kilometres”, and: “A bus with 55 passengers can run for 1,000 km on the food waste produced by its passengers each year.”

Biogas is produced naturally in environments with no oxygen: swamps, for example, rice paddies and the stomachs of ruminant animals like cattle. An anaerobic digester’s microbes produce the methane by eating the organic content of the waste, leaving a nutrient-rich fertiliser as the residue.

Germany and China are the world leaders in turning farm waste into gas, with 8,000 and 24,000 farm-based plants respectively. More surprising perhaps is the fact that China has built 42 million small biogas plants in a decade to turn village waste into fuel.

Compatible mix

Usually the methane produced in these digesters is fed into generators or small power stations on site and used locally. But if it is further purified the gas can simply be fed into a pipeline and mixed with natural gas.

In Sweden, which aims by 2030 to replace fossil fuels in transport with biogas, the number of gas-driven vehicles has doubled to 50,000 in the last five years. One Swedish advance is to cool the gas to -163°C until it liquefies, reducing its volume by 600 times and making it a perfect fuel for large lorries. Demand for biogas outstrips supply in much of the country, which is now using its ample supplies of forestry waste.

Elsewhere, for example in the UK and South Korea, much biogas comes from old rubbish dumps where the methane they emit is piped to mini-power stations on site. More recently, to cut down on waste, local authorities in the UK have begun collecting thrown-away food so that purpose-built anaerobic digesters can convert it into gas and fertiliser.

Scotland, although part of the UK, has a devolved government which recognises that stronger regulation can drive the biogas revolution. – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

stux / Pixabay
Air & Marine

Big Seven European Airlines Lag on Reducing Sky-High Emissions: Report

June 13, 2022
68
Ars Electronica/flickr
Solar

Unique ‘Smartflower’ Microgrid to Power Saskatchewan High School

June 13, 2022
150
http://midwestenergynews.com/2013/10/24/as-pipeline-concerns-mount-a-renewed-focus-on-the-great-lakes-enbridge-mackinac-line-5/
Pipelines / Rail Transport

Line 5 Closure Brings Negligible Rise in Gas Prices, Enbridge Consultant Finds

June 10, 2022
201

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

The federal government's Cliff Street Power Plant is at the centre of Ottawa's plans to reduce natural gas demand. Photo: PWGSC

EXCLUSIVE: Ontario Regulator Refuses New Pipeline, Tells Enbridge to Plan for Lower Gas Demand

May 30, 2022
5.1k
Jason Woodhead/Flickr

Trans Mountain Pipeline On Track to Lose $600 Million, Parliamentary Budget Officer Finds

June 24, 2022
312
Ben_Kerckx/Pixabay

Plastics Cited as ‘Fossil Industry’s Plan B’ as Guilbeault Announces Partial Ban

June 24, 2022
193
Bruce Reeve/Flickr

Opinion: Ontario’s New ‘Carbon Tax’ Looks Like the One Doug Ford Fought

June 7, 2022
1.6k
zephylwer0/pixabay

North American Steel, Aluminium Giants Lumber Toward Green Transition

June 24, 2022
164
Michael and Diane Weidner/Unsplash

Scientists, Politicians Debate Ethics of ‘Climate Tinkering’

June 7, 2022
72

Recent Posts

Erik Whalen/wikimedia commons

Yellowstone Park Reopens, But Flood Recovery Could Take Years, Cost Billions

June 24, 2022
73
TAFE SA TONSLEY/Flickr

Clean Energy Investment to Exceed $1.4T This Year, Still Falls Short of Climate Goals: IEA

June 24, 2022
93
Nemaska Lithium/Facebook

Critical Minerals, Hydrogen Lead Ottawa’s Low-Carbon Industry Strategy

June 24, 2022
79
Cjp24/Wikimedia Commons

UK Green Shift Won’t Repeat Job Destruction of Deindustrialization, Report Finds

June 24, 2022
36
/PxFul

Canadian Farmers Offer Ottawa a Roadmap to Cut Agriculture Emissions

June 24, 2022
92
Pavlofox/Pixabay

Millions Face Famine as Climate Disasters, Ukraine War Slash Food Supplies

June 24, 2022
48
Next Post
InsideClimate News/Facebook

InsideClimate News Named as Finalist for Goldsmith Investigative Award

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}