Biogas systems protect our air, water, and soil by recycling organic waste into renewable energy and soil products, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Across the globe, there is an urgent need to manage the millions of tons of food, water and animal waste. The main benefits of biogas systems come from the fact that they are recycling all this material while also producing renewable energy and soil products which displace fossil fuels.
When you put these and other benefits together, we can prevent tons of carbon emissions from entering our air, prevent nutrients from entering our waterways, create healthier soils with natural, non-fossil fuel-based fertilizers, and produce reliable, baseload renewable energy.
What is biogas?
Biogas a renewable fuel that’s produced when organic matter, such as food or animal waste, is broken down by microorganisms in the absence of oxygen. This process is called anaerobic digestion. For this to take place, the waste material needs to be enclosed in an environment where there is no oxygen.
The biological matter that’s used to produce biogas will naturally decay anyway, so capturing the gases produced by this decay, and using them as an energy source, causes less harm to the environment than allowing them to escape into the atmosphere.
Biogas digesters
Inside a biogas digester, anaerobic microorganisms break down complex organic compounds present in the feedstock into simpler molecules through a series of biochemical reactions. These reactions result in the production of biogas, primarily composed of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2), along with trace amounts of other gases such as hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and ammonia (NH3).
Benefits of biogas
Environmental benefits
- Recycle manure and kill odors and pathogens while producing renewable energy and soil products
- Help assist the natural cycles of recycling to farming
- Moving manure from open lagoons to an airtight biogas system reduces GHG emissions
- Reduce carbon emissions in transportation by at least half compared to fossil fuels
- Recycling manure creates an opportunity to separate nutrients and keep them out of waterways
- The use of digestate can replace costly synthetic fertilisers and can increase plant growth by 10-30 percent compared to synthetic fertilisers
- Plants absorb soil nutrients, like nitrogen or phosphorus, more easily than raw manure. This allows farmers to use the right volume and ratio of nutrients needed and minimise the additional purchase of synthetic fertilisers.
Economic benefits
- A cost-effective solution to turning a high-cost deliverable like waste treatment into a revenue-generating opportunity for farmers and rural communities
- For companies that want to reduce their carbon footprint, some biogas systems are so carbon negative that replacing a small percentage of fossil gas with renewable biogas or renewable natural gas can help reach net-zero goals
- Create new revenue streams, building resiliency against commodity price fluctuations.
- Can reduce farm costs for animal bedding and fertilizer and generate new revenue streams.
- A driver for economic growth and offer local jobs in construction, engineering, project management and more
Reduce the volume of waste, meaning that costs are often lowered for facilities like wastewater plants
Energy benefits
- A renewable source of energy that is a direct replacement for non-renewable, carbon-intensive fossil fuels
- Produce renewable energy 24/7/365 with a reliability rate of 95%–in comparison, the average reliability rate for solar power is 25% and 35% for wind power
- Biogas supports distributed generation of energy, which means lower transmission and transportation costs as well as reduced impact and higher reliability of electrical grids
- Systems with gas storage can provide renewable electricity on demand in minutes, reducing the need to turn on fossil fueled power plants to meet peak demand
- Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) procured from biogas can be used interchangeably with natural gas for heating, electricity, and the production of quality biomethane and transportation fuel
- By purchasing RNG, large gas customers support their ESG goals, reduce fossil fuel use, and decrease their carbon footprint
- The thermal heat needed in industrial manufacturing (that only gas can support) is responsible for a large percentage of emissions. Biogas is currently the most sustainable way to address these emissions.
Source: https://americanbiogascouncil.org/resources/why-biogas