Biogas Plant in Balcony, Indian Man Slashes LPG Bill by Half! and More!

Recently we wrote a report about the state of anaerobic digestion plant and biogas development in India. We noted that at national government level there was very little indication of any top-level awareness of the great potential for the betterment in India, available from biogas technology.

We said that this was disappointing because once India led in biogas. The was a growing number of small rural biogas plants and its production was having many spin-off advantages.

The same is not true in some parts of India where a number of people are developing their own biogas plant systems and helping those around them to join in with the advantages of anaerobic digestion. This, we think you will agree is amply demonstrated in the following article extracts:

1 - Jharkhand Man Installs Biogas Plant in Balcony, Slashes LPG Bill by Half!

Able to serve a family for four years, the entire portable structure cost him less than Rs 10,000 and took a few hours to assemble. No wonder he is the talk of his neighbourhood now!

Almost 160 years ago, the first successful biogas generation plant was established in Mumbai, India. Since then, approximately five million biogas plants cater to domestic needs like water heating and cooking.

Contrary to this, various countries, especially Germany, have been efficiently harnessing its benefits in other sectors.

“Having been the forerunners, we should have led ahead of all in ushering the biogas revolution, not the European countries like Germany, that have become forerunners of biogas utilisation, both in domestic and public spheres,” said a senior corporate executive, while speaking to The Better India.

Based in Jamshedpur, this executive, Gaurav Anand, has led the movement by becoming the first man in the steel city to build a biogas plant small enough to fit into his apartment’s balcony!

Photo Source: Tatasphere

Not only has it slashed his monthly expenditure on LPG, but has also rewarded him with rich slurry compost that makes his garden bloom.  via Jharkha

2 - Patna Girl Builds Biogas Plants, Provides Electricity to Poor Farmers!

City born and bred she may be, yet Akansha Singh was aware of the economic and social inequalities that exist within India. But it wasn’t until she got to the ground and observed first-hand did she realise the scale of the issue.

After completing her Masters in Social Entrepreneurship from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in 2014, Akansha had set out to Jhabua district in Madhya Pradesh as part of an internship.

She was 24 at the time.

“That was a devastating eye-opener for me. The two weeks that I was there, I observed no households had toilets neither did they have any proper power supply. Which meant, the women had to cook food before nightfall as their farmer husbands finished their farming activities by that time. One thing that had particularly affected me was that these families consumed their meals cold because they had to finish preparing dinner while there was still natural light,” says Akansha to The Better India.

During this period, she noticed many social and environmental issues in the region. The women were still cooking using cow dung cakes, and the entire family was inhaling hazardous smoke regularly.

Finally, after months of convincing and explaining to them the many benefits of the project, the villagers yielded, and Akansha began looking for land to build the plant.

“Fortunately, a person from another community volunteered and donated a patch of land for the project. It is remarkable as caste system is much prevalent in the region, but this kind individual wanted the underprivileged community to lead better and empowered lives. From there, our journey started,” she says.

Today, they have two biogas plants in Samastipur; one with 2-hour bioelectricity capacity while the other supplies power for four hours.

Swayambhu received its initial funding from DBS Bank, Singapore. Her project was also aided partly by the beneficiaries and mostly by both government and non-government agencies.

“There has been a visible change in these areas. After seeing how electricity has brightened up their lives, the beneficiaries have become truly committed to the cause and pay charges without fail. Also, ever since they have ditched chemical pesticides and fertilisers for the organic manure from the plant, they have been saving a considerable amount of money as well as observed better yield. Our solution has impacted in multiple folds,” 

Akansha adds.

In addition to community biogas plants, they have also worked on individual plants for bioelectricity, including one in collaboration with students of IIT Patna.

Completion of a biogas plant.

via Electricity to Poor Farmers!

A Biogas Startup By An IIT-Bombay Alumnus Aims To Fight Air Pollution And Manage Waste

New Delhi: 34-year-old Priyadarshan Sahasrabuddhe, a Pune based engineer is trying to provide a solution for two of the biggest environmental problems facing India – air pollution and burgeoning waste pile ups. 

The IIT-Bombay alumnus has launched a technology to produce cooking gas fuel by repurposing the organic-waste produced in the kitchen and at the same time reducing the dependence on fossil fuels. In 2017 he created ‘Vaayu’, a biofuel plant that can be easily installed at homes to convert carbohydrates from organic waste into methane gas which can be used for cooking and heating purposes.

“I was working at my parent’s firm about two years ago and I noticed that every day after lunch, a lot of leftover food used to end up in the garbage bins. Watching all that food go waste, I thought of trying composting to manage that waste. But it was not enough. On researching more, I came to know about biofuels. I found that not only will it help in managing organic waste, it will also help in reducing our dependence on non-renewable sources like LPG,” 

said Mr. Sahasrabuddhe.

Also Read: Mumbai Civic Body Produces Cooking Gas From Waste For Its Canteen In N-Ward

“Waste segregation is the key here. Initially, when I started advocating for green living, I used to go to each house in my locality every morning to ask them to segregate their waste. There were days when I myself used to pick organic waste from the nearby garbage dumps. But gradually when my neighbours started to understand ‘Vaayu’, they started segregating and I get almost 8- 10 kgs of organic waste at my doorstep every day,” 

said the engineer turned innovator.

After a long period of testing of the device at his home and reducing his dependence on LPG to a significant extent, Mr. Sahasrabuddhe pushed others in his family, neighbours, and friends to start using this innovation. Till date his startup has done 135 installations in Pune, Sangli, Aurangabad, Umarkhed (District Yavatmal), Palghar, Nashik and Hyderabad. These installations together are managing up to two tons of food waste per day and saving about 900 LPG cylinders worth fuel per year.

How Does ‘Vaayu’ Work?

‘Vaayu’ is a domestic bio-gas machine which can be installed in the house, in the gallery, on the terrace or in the garden. The apparatus is fuelled by the waste generated in the kitchen which gets broken down by bacterial action known as Anaerobic Bacterial Digestion. Through this process, the carbon dioxide captured inside the organic waste during photosynthesis is divided into methane gas and liquid. The gas is stored in the balloon kind of a structure called the cylinder which is connected to the stovepipe. The cooking experience is exactly the same as that of a regular LPG or piped CNG (Compressed Natural Gas). The slurry generated in this process is high on nutrients and can be utilised as manure for the plants in the house.

The regular size ‘Vaayu’ has a container of two kg capacity in which the organic waste is put. A single two kg container, ‘Vaayu’ produces 200 litres of biogas within 24 hours which is 40 minutes of cooking gas per day saving up to three LPG cylinders per year. The capacity of the device can be increased by adding the containers.

The device requires cleaning up once in six months. The solid undigested material removed is fibrous and can be taken back to the garden as manure. Currently, the cost of installing ‘Vaayu’ is Rs. 20,000 but the operating cost is zero. There is no need of power to run ‘Vaayu’ as it operates on its own. Mr. Sahasrabuddhe is still working to improve the technology to make if more affordable.

Mr. Sahasrabuddhe has also started an informal community of like-minded nature enthusiasts who come up with innovative solutions and want to share them with others. The community, ‘Vaayu Mitra’, provides biofuel solutions according to the number of people residing in a house and encourage them to adopt a greener lifestyle. He says,

In my society, everyone segregates their own waste now. I and my friends are working also with waste collectors and are training them to operate biogas plants so that they become energy suppliers too. This increased value will help them earn better remuneration. via Waste Warriors

If you know of any further examples like these in India, please provide details by leaving a comment.

Methanogenesis, Synthetic Biology and the Biogas Industry

Methanogenesis or biomethanation in a biogas plant is an important process resulting in the formation of methane. The methane can be collected and used as biogas, a renewable fuel.

Most of this biogas is produced from biomass on farms, but biogas can also be produced during anaerobic wastewater treatment. Wastewater treatment methods include methanogenic anaerobic digestion, and when used this technology results in the production of biogas and clarified effluent.

But, to be effective in producing biogas in quantity, anaerobic digestion needs to be conducted within the ranges which existed for millennia in nature, and these are called the mesophilic and thermophilic temperature ranges.

Methanogenic compositions in biogas reactors and methanogenic communities in reactors are only established in fully anaerobic conditions, and currently only when operated at those optimum temperatures.

But, does it always have to be like this? Could we alter when biogas is made, including make biogas efficiently low temperatures.

There would be massive benefits from this, especially for cold climate regions.

To go any further, let us explain a little about the all-important bugs (methanogens) needed to make biogas:

Methanogens are microorganisms that produce methane as a metabolic byproduct in hypoxic conditions. They are prokaryotic and belong to the domain of archaea. They are common in wetlands, where they are responsible for marsh gas, and in the digestive tracts of animals such as ruminants and humans, where they are responsible for the methane content of belching in ruminants and flatulence in humans.

The methanogenic archaea populations play an indispensable role in anaerobic wastewater treatments. via Wikipedia

To create genetically engineered existing DNA sequences, through synthetic biology would allow scientists to build entirely new sequences of DNA and put them to work in cells.

This would allow the building of novel biological devices that would never exist in nature. This is known as synthetic biology.

Synthetic Biology and the Biogas Industry

Essentially a process operating by living organisms, the biogas industry is a natural target for synthetic biology. In terms of their genetic content, organisms are classified into three natural groups, Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya. Most microbes are Archaea and Bacteria, while humans are Eukarya.

In an anaerobic digester, many different types of Bacteria convert the complex organic matter in waste or biomass to hydrogen gas, carbon dioxide, formate and acetate. A unique group of methanogenic Archaea then produce the invaluable part of biogas, methane, by eating hydrogen and carbon dioxide, formate or acetate.

One can imagine creating a super microbe to convert the complex organic matter directly into biogas, thus making anaerobic digestion faster, more efficient and easier-to-manipulate. Making a synthetic microbial community by reprogramming key microbes may also help them work together when a tough job (i.e., eating extremely complex waste) needs to be done.

Among numerous microbes in an anaerobic digester, methanogenic Archaea are one of a few microbial groups that have been extensively studied, and a number of genetic tools are available for engineering via synthetic biology.

Therefore, scientists have begun to reprogram methanogenic archaea, allowing them to eat organic matter such as sugars and directly produce methane. If they succeed, they may engineer a super microbe that never existed in nature and revolutionize the biogas industry by making anaerobic digestion much simpler and more efficient.

Concluding - The Huge Potential for Synthetic Biology in the Biogas Industry

Synthetic biology, applied to methanogenesis, holds great potentials to revolutionize the biogas industry.

To achieve this goal, joint efforts between the biogas industry and academia must be made.

The former side needs to understand what synthetic biology can achieve, while the latter side should identify which parts of the process in the biogas industry can be re-designed and optimized by synthetic biology. via BioEnergy Consult

What is a Biogas Reactor

For those that ask "What is a biogas reactor" the definition we use is as follows:
 The biogas reactor within a biogas plant (anaerobic digestion plant) is the vessel or vessels in which anaerobic treatment technology produces two main products.

 These are:

(a) a digested slurry (digestate) that can be used as a fertilizer, and

 (b) biogas that can be used as an energy source.

Biogas is a mixture of methane, carbon dioxide and other trace gases which can be converted to heat, electricity or light.

Small-scale Biogas Reactors

Small-scale biogas reactors are typically designed to produce biogas at the household or community level in rural areas.

In most Small-scale biogas reactors the airtight reactors are buried in the ground and are filled with animal manure from the farm and house. Kitchen and garden wastes can also be added and toilets can directly be linked to the reactor for co-treatment of excreta.

Schematic of a small scale Biogas Reactor Large Commercial Scale

Biogas Reactors Although the process in large scale commercial biogas reactors is the same as in the small ones.

Large scale commercial biogas reactors vary from the digesters built to service a small farm (i. e. "small" in western terms) up to the digesters built to digest the sludge from a large sewage treatment works. In all cases the definition of the reactor is the same, although the majority of large scale biogas reactors are made from circular steel tanks, which are lagged for the necessary heat retention.

 A More Detailed Alternative Definition for "What is a Biogas Reactor" 

 A biogas reactor is an airtight chamber that facilitates the anaerobic degradation of blackwater, sludge, and/or biodegradable waste (e.g. animal manure, kitchen and garden wastes).

It also facilitates the collection of the biogas, a mixture of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) produced in the fermentation processes in the reactor. The gas forms in the slurry and collects at the top of the chamber, mixing the slurry as it rises.

 The pressure exerted by the rising gas can be used to transport the gas to the collection vessel or directly to where it is going to be used. The digestate is rich in organics and nutrients, almost odourless and pathogens are partly inactivated.

 Biogas Reactors Are Living Organisms: Operator Responses When Biogas Output Drops 

Biogas Reactors work well most of the time when the operator uses feedstocks with which the plant operator has experience, but when new feedstocks are introduced, or even when familiar feedstocks are used, the biogas quality and/ or quantity may drop. It is necessary to take action when the biological process shows signs of imbalance. In this context the operator has only a few options available at most AD plants.

The operator can reduce the feed rate, or cease feeding in which case the reactor may stabilise itself, dilute the biomass, or add fresh or degassed biomass to rectify an imbalance in reactor chemistry where the cause is known.

 Biogas Reactor feeding changes are an important tool to correct reactor slowdowns, but it is difficult to give a precise recipe for doing it successfully.

 Most biogas plants have, to a greater or lesser extent, been subjected to operational disturbances, and several plants have experienced that the process at worst may break completely.

Such collapse can have serious financial consequences for the plant, and Biogas Reactor chemistry problems are an issue that focuses the minds of all AD plant owning business men.

 Downward drifts in biogas output, and even a collapse in the biogas produced in a biogas reactor, are often linked to the types of biomass that the plants are fed with, and unfortunately it has been found that a combination of manure and other organic waste of varying strengths and composition, can become a dangerous cocktail.

 If there is a lot of protein and fat in the mixture in the reactor, it can cause high concentrations of ammonium and long chain fatty acids (LCFA) that may inhibit the process.

The best way to avoid such inhibitions is to have a thorough knowledge of the type of biomass that the plant is supplied, both in terms of the chemical composition and how the biomass breaks down in the plant.

 In addition, it is important to accurately measure the different types of waste entering a biogas reactor, as well as detailed process monitoring is very important.

 Unfortunately, it is far from always that the plants have the opportunity to feed consistently with the same types of feedstocks to provide the reactor with stable conditions.

The ability of the biogas plant operator to find consistent feedstocks are limited in number and size by the availability of materials, and the operators will therefore often be forced to mix.

 Those biogas plant which are fed from feedstock produced through the operators own business activities (e.g. on-farm manure) have the best chance of ensuring consistent feedstock availability.

 To provide a service for the disposal of organic (biomass) wastes for long-term clients makes the need to accept variations in the composition, quantity and delivery frequency of the different types of waste inevitable.

 This means that the plants may be forced to supply a certain type of waste to the biogas reactors at a time when it may cause problems with the stability of the biological process. Finally, a complete monitoring of all process parameters is a time-consuming and expensive solution, which means that monitoring at most plants is inadequate.

 As a consequence of these constraints, various drift disturbances occur at biogas plants. The question is therefore:

What can managers do to quickly restore the process when they detect a decline in gas production?

At the Department of Environment and Resources at the Technical University of Denmark they have conducted a series of trials to restore the biogas process in laboratory reactors.

The experiments supported by the Energy Research Program were primarily based on dilution of the biomass with either water, manure or degassed biomass.

 The process was inhibited by adding either ammonium or LCFA to four reactants with cattle gel.

he outcome of the different strategies as well as a description of the experiments are discussed below.

Ammonium Inhibition of Biogas Reactors

After inhibition with ammonium, it was found that the most effective method of recovery of the process was to replace half of the reactor content with degassed biomass or fresh cattle gel.

 With that strategy, it took about six days to return to the original gas production, while it took 10-11 days if 50 percent water was added instead or the daily amount of manure was reduced.

After almost six days, a significant increase in gas production was recorded in the reactor, which added 50 percent fresh cattle gel.

Thus, throughout the recovery period, this reactor produced between 42 and 74 percent more gas than the other reactors, which is associated with the additional amount of organic material that the reactor was supplied in the form of fresh slurry.

 However, one should also stick to the evolution of the oxygen level during the restoration, as it gives an indication of how stable the process is.

Here it was found that the increase in the acid level was somewhat higher by the addition of fresh manure than by the addition of degassed biomass.

Therefore,, much evidence suggests that the most effective and safe method of ammonium inhibition is a combined addition of manure and degassed biomass.

The worst approach is to do nothing and only add the daily amount of manure or dilute the biomass with water.

The supply of water provides a faster recovery than if it is not intervened, but on the other hand, this strategy leads to relatively low gas production.

 The strongest increase in oxygen levels was recorded in the reactor where no intervention was taken, indicating that the process here was more affected than in the other reactors.

 LCFA Inhibition

Inhibition of the biogas process by the administration of LCFA showed substantially the same picture as inhibition with ammonium. via www.biopress.dk

What is Biogas and How Has It Been Hijacked?

The term 'biogas' is commonly used to refer to a gas which has been produced by the biological breakdown of organic matter in the absence of oxygen. The gases methane, hydrogen and carbon monoxide can be combusted or oxidized with oxygen and the resultant energy release allows biogas to be used as a fuel. In the same way that ethanol and biodiesel have been around for a long time, biogas has a long history. Back in the 13th century, explorer Marco Polo noted that the Chinese used covered sewage tanks to generate power. The author of Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe  – referred to biogas technologies back in the 17th century. Biogas has been used widely in the UK for centuries and back in 1895, the city of Exeter used gas from sewage to power its city street lamps. According to its composition, biogas presents characteristics interesting to compare with natural gas and propane. Biogas is a gas appreciably lighter than air, it produces twice as less calories by combustion with equal volume of natural gas.

Biogas is Awesome!

Biogas is also known as biomethane (when further purified and compressed), swamp gas, landfill gas, or digester gas—is the gaseous product of anaerobic digestion (decomposition without oxygen) of organic matter. In addition to providing electricity and heat, biogas is useful as a vehicle fuel. When processed to purity standards, biogas is called renewable natural gas and can substitute for natural gas as an alternative fuel for natural gas vehicles. The gas has a composition which is usually 50% to 80% methane and 20% to 50% carbon dioxide with traces of gases such as hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen. In contrast, natural gas is usually more than 70% methane with most of the rest being other hydrocarbons (such as propane and butane) and traces of carbon dioxide and other contaminants.

What is Biogas - Its "one of the most untapped sources of natural and sustainable energy available"

Biogas is one of the most untapped sources of natural and sustainable energy available. It is used all over the world and by far the largest number of biogas plant (technically known as anaerobic digestion plants) are relatively small installations and are found in the developing nations. India for instance has more than 12 million digesters). The Africa Biogas Partnership Programme (ABPP) 70,000 biogas plants in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Senegal and Burkina Faso. That project alone will be expected to be providing about half a million people access to a sustainable source of energy by this year 2013. Biogas plants can be useful resources wherever you are. An example of this is the Mount Everest area. It is a destination for climbers and trekkers from all over the world. While visiting our world’s highest mountain, climbers, trekkers, and walkers take away great memories, lots of photos and new friends, but leave behind their untreated waste. At the Mount Everest Biogas Project they are going to convert human waste from base camp into environmentally safe products for the people of Nepal, by designing a biogas system that can operate at high altitudes (above 5000 meters / 16,400 feet) above sea level. The area is the home to the summit peaks of Mt. Everest, Pumori, Lhotse and Nupste. The base camps for Everest and the other peaks in Sagarmatha National Park, Nepal are the expeditions’ summit climb beginning. These base camps host the climbers for weeks as they prepare physically and mentally for the challenge ahead. These camps have also, over the years, been scarred by human impact. With so many people in such a limited space, the challenge of limiting pollution due to human waste has persisted. Anaerobic digestion is unique in its ability to reduce the impact of visitors by providing biogas as a cooking fuel, which reducing the need for the local people to denude the local tree growth to heat their food and eat.

The Future for Biogas Lies With a Domestic Biogas Plant Revolution in the West

That is a measure of how both humble in its nature, but capable of healing nature, anaerobic digestion can be.

But, there needs to be a revolution in its use so that the western world can reap the same benefits as the east has done at a domestic level. The west needs to tap it's own domestic waste for renewable energy and home biogas plants offer a 100% natural way to do this.

Clean-burning biogas at home from ordinary kitchen and garden waste is the future. Biogas generates more energy than solar panels anytime day or night, rain or shine at a fraction of the cost.

And unlike solar panels, biogas provides excellent cooking fuel and high-quality nitrogen-rich fertilizer for gardening or landscaping. Biogas is a mixture of gases composed largely of methane produced during the natural decomposition of organic matter. Home and small farm biogas systems are simple as 1-2-3 to operate and biogas can be used for anything fossil natural gas can, including cooking, running generators and pumps and even vehicle fuel.

Biogas for the Future

The possibilities of increased use of anaerobic digestion as an effluent treatment process depend upon the introduction of improved small scale and particularly domestic scale reactor designs. However, there are critical factors influencing the economic use of the process which still need to be addressed in the context of use of AD in the home in the industrialized and wealthy west. The choice of better digester designs is therefore essential in relation to the waste itself, and problems in its supply, and handling and transportation of the end product from urban households will need to be solved. Limitations concerning thermodynamic efficiency, scrubbing costs, flammability, compressibility and storage are also hampering home use of biogas plants. Communities and governments throughout the west should be investing heavily in the development of new small scale anaerobic digestion system technologies with the vision of making them as common as the domestic washing machine and dishwasher is today. Then the west would benefit from this amazing technology just as the east is already is. Why is the west so lacking in vision?

"AD in the west has been hijacked by big business"

Surely, the west is being left behind with so few domestic scale AD Plants? They work massively in the developing world so why not in the west? The fact is that unfortunately in the west we all think of big corporations when we think of biogas, and we are missing the point. Biogas works best at the small scale. Why don't the developed nations realize this? We are all blind to this because, AD in the west has been hijacked by big business. It has been stolen from the average person. This isn't right!

What is its Future?

All people in the developed nations should go out and demand government support and investment in their own anaerobic digestion plants in their own homes. Anything less flies against all the evidence. As we have already explained. They can do it in India, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Senegal and Burkina Faso. So why not here in the developed world as well?

For more detailed technical information we suggest you download the excellent factsheet at: http://www.worldbioenergy.org/content/wba-press-release-biogas-important-renewable-energy-source

Originally at: the AD Blogsite article here.

News About the Latest in Biogas Engines

Clarke Energy has held the monopoly in online news releases in this market for the last few months, with biogas engines supplied for sites in the UK, and Kenya, as below:

In early 2013 Clarke Energy supplied and commissioned a 3 MW biogas engine at Agri-gen's Rendlesham anaerobic digestion plant at Bentwater Park, Ipswich. This facility digests energy crops, such as root vegetables, ...

ᔥClarke Energy and Agri-gen generate renewable energy from waste ...

E is supplying U.K.-based energy project developer Clarke Energy with two of its ecomagination qualified Jenbacher J420 biogas engines for a new 2.8 MW agricultural biogas power project at a large vegetable farm near ...

ᔥGE, Clarke Energy supply Jenbacher engines to Africa biogas plant ...

Converting Small Scale Biogas Engines for Domestic AD Plants

However, biogas engines come in all sizes and we found a video which expains how to convert a cheap tri-fuel engine to run on biogas in the small scale, from a domestic biogas digestor. The video shows how this can be acheived for about $450 from suppliers in the US. See below:

ᔥTri-fuel Engine Conversion for biogas use, part 2 | Gas & Coal Videos

CHP and Biogas Engines

The use of biogas engines in combination with use of the steam produced, as a lower grade heat source continues to feature in the news, with Clarke Energy also active in that area, as follows:

Clarke Energy is assisting Agrivert to produce renewable energy from Oxfordshire Council’s waste. Agrivert’s new Wallingford Anaerobic digestion facility is helping to deliver a sustainable solution to both waste treatment and renewable energy production in Oxfordshire. The anaerobic digester processes food waste collected from Oxfordshire County Council and other local sources and produces biogas, a renewable fuel. The biogas is used in a combined heat and power (CHP) plant, achieving fuel efficiency in excess of 84%.

ᔥClarke Energy speeds Agrivert in producing renewable power in ...

Finally,  we have some pictures of biogas engines around the world. Here we see James Callaghan in the engine room of the Maryland Farms biogas operation near Lindsay, Ontario.

The first image above is by Green Energy Futures via Flickr.

Below is the Biogas-BHKW 12V 400.

Image by Tognum: MTU & MTU Onsite Energy via Flickr.

And, the considerably larger 4000 model:

Image by Tognum: MTU & MTU Onsite Energy via Flickr.

GWE Biogas Anaerobic Digestion Plant Will Help Businesses Meet Their Obligations

This is what GWE Biogas are saying, and we have no doubt with good reason, while building their new Anaerobic Digestion plant at Sandhill, Driffield, East Yorkshire.

The following has been adapted from their March newsletter:

GWE report being delighted to see that even before operations have begun the plant is being recognised as being highly innovative by external organisations. As a part of the Environmental Transformation Fund programme administered by WRAP on behalf of DEFRA and DECC, GWE’s plant will help the UK deliver an increase in the generation of renewable energy, a reduction in the waste sent to landfill and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

They explain that their new biogas methane plant will help businesses meet their obligations, because whilst many businesses know that they need to play a part in cutting greenhouse gases, taking action to is not always a simple matter.

However, when the new Sandhill anaerobic digestion facility near Driffield comes online later this year, businesses and organisations who separately collect food waste will be able to make a difference by simply choosing to send their waste to GWE Biogas.

By converting food waste into a stream of biogas, that can then be used to generate either renewable electricity or be used directly as a renewable fuel, GWE Biogas can guarantee customers that they are maximising environmental benefit and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the maximum amount possible.

In addition, this will often be for less than it costs to send waste to landfill.

Whilst composting processes stop the direct emission of harmful landfill gas to the atmosphere, formed by the decomposition of food waste and other organic materials, this is where the benefit stops.

The anaerobic digestion of food waste has the added value step of producing renewable energy that can displace energy produced from fossil sources.

Each kilowatt hour of grid based electricity produced results in around 500 grams of carbon dioxide emissions and so each kilowatt hour of electricity produced by the
anaerobic digestion process saves 500 grams of carbon emissions.

Visit GWE Biogas at their web site www.gwebiogas.co.uk .

French Natural Gas Network Soon to Accept Biomethane

Biomethane is coming to the French natural gas network

In France, authorisation for injecting biomethane fuel into the natural gas distribution network has until now been subject to an assessment of the environmental and health risks. The French Agency for Health and Safety in the Environment and Workplace (AFSSET) came to a favourable conclusion on the 29th October. The injection of biomethane into the network, as well as a fiscal approach which favours the principle of “green gas”, will allow the field of biomethane fuel, considered the best way of developing biogas, to make progress under much better conditions.

Although natural gas as a fuel is already considered to be safe, efficient and less polluting than petrol or diesel, French support for the field of biomethane fuel is fairly recent. However, initiatives have demonstrated all of its benefits. In Lille (Metropolitan Urban Community, LMCU), the methanisation of urban organic waste has meant that the biomethane obtained has been used as a fuel in the city’s buses and domestic waste disposal vehicles. Furthermore, this approach has been legitimised environmentally by a study of the life cycle of the methods of developing biogas, commissioned in September 2007 by ADEME and GDF (to download the ACV conclusions, go to the BiogasMax web site).

At the ‘Grenelle’ Environment Conference (October 2007) the biogas club had submitted several ways of proceeding with the work for developing this field, which has enormous ecological benefits.

The club’s voice was heard: at a recent conference on this subject, Charles Thiébaut (from the Department of Risk Prevention at the Ministry of the Environment, Energy, Sustainable Development and Town and Country Planning) said that “the commitment had been made to favour methanisation by supporting it and modifying regulations” (National Technical Day conference, 07.10.08 – Succeeding with a methanisation project including household, agricultural and industrial waste, ADEME).

The development of the biogas fuel field was waiting for authorisation to inject its biomethane into the natural gas network, as even if the production of biogas is continuous, vehicle consumption can fluctuate. In order to be used as a fuel, biogas has to undergo processes known as “purification” (drying, desulphurisation, decarbonisation) which makes biomethane very similar to NGV natural gas for vehicles.

In the first instance, therefore, authorisation for injection had to be subject to technical specifications. These having been established and published by GDF in December 2007, (download the GDF technical specifications), there only remained the assessment of risks to public health and the environment.

This study was requested from the French Agency for Health and Safety in the Environment and Workplace (AFSSET) in September 2006. Its conclusions are now available and are “unequivocally favourable when biogas is produced from methanisation of waste or from storage of non-dangerous waste.”

Very soon, therefore, the Centre for Organic Development (CVO) in Lille-Sequedin should receive authorisation from the Ministry in charge of energy and be able to put into operation the connection of its canalisation system of purified biogas with the French gas network. Having opened the way, it will be the local authorities who will subsequently issue these authorisations. More here...