Friday, January 23, 2009

Stockholm - Biogas First Choice as the Cleanest Fuel Available


This is a posting from KARAMEL BiogasMax the EU sponsored biogas web site:

Stockholm : an increasing number of buses fueled with biomethane
bus stockholm 050109

SL, the company in charge of Public Transport in the town and the county of Stockholm, announced that its fleet will include 80 buses running on biomethane this year. An SL analysis showed that biomethane is the most environmental friendly and economically attractive biofuel.

SL (Storstockholms Lokaltrafik), in charge of the whole of the Public Transport in and around Stockholm, operates more than 700 000 travels a day. As SL is concerned about environmental impact of its activity, it has run for quite a long time an environmental policy of CO2 emissions reduction. Thus, our Biogasmax partner introduced its first biogas buses by 2003, to reach lately the number of 52 units, which run today with gas natural and bioethanol buses.

An SL analysis that tackles different alternative fuels shows that biomethane is the most efficient biofuel : bioethanol does not offer the same environmental advantages, apart from other ethical concerns. The biomethane use as fuel for vehicle in Public Transport clearly creates an attractive environmentally closed loop : this means that the town-dwellers themselves, with the production of their organic wastes, supply the ressources required for the fuel production of their own public transport.

SL states that biogas is the first-hand choice as it is the cleanest fuel available today. Thus, it announces an expansion of the number of biogas buses : 80 (currently 50 articulated gas buses) by the end of that year, and, over the next four years, a view of 500 units. Today, these buses operate in the inner city of Stockholm, where air quality is the worst. But, as the number of these biogas buses increases, they will operate in the suburbs of Stockholm.

The expansion of the biogas buses depends of course on the local production capacity of biomethane. SL has secured the long term supply via agreements with Stockholm Water and Käppala Association. Go to BiogasMax here.

5 comments:

@lex said...

In Ukraine (after Russias gas trick) the theme of biogas, as the most appropriate alternative fuel, is very popular. There is even an integrator of biogas solutions http://zorg-biogas.com/

Steve Last said...

I think everyone in the UK must be relieved that we still right now have some of our own natural gas left. I believe about half of our natural gas still comes from the North Sea, but that figure will dropping quite rapidly as the UK fields run-out?

@lex said...

It's really necessary to develop alternative technologies up to commercial level. Othervise we got trobles in a decade )

Steve Last said...

I think that the worry now, with the recession and bank lending problems, is whether the money can be borrowed to develop and build the new technology renewable energy plants that are going to be so essential as North Sea energy bows out...

@lex said...

Yes, just a yesr ago it was enough to get the loan in order to start the project. Now it is quite a tough question to get the funds for biogas plant.