Biogas Could Replace All EU Natural Gas Imports From Russia**

Biopact reported that biogas can replace all EU Natural Gas imports:

Last year, the German Greens (Grüne) commissioned a report on the potential of biogas in Europe. The Öko-Instituts and the Institut für Energetik in Leipzig carried out the study and came to some startling conclusions: Germany alone can produce more biogas by 2020 than all of the EU's current natural gas imports from Russia.

The growing interest in the gaseous biofuel can be easily explained: it can be produced in a decentralised manner, it is highly efficient - yielding more than twice as much energy per hectare of energy crops than ethanol from similar crops - and it can be obtained in a straightforward way from a large variety of biomass resources (organic waste, manure, dedicated energy crops). What is more, the fuel has two highly efficient uses: as a gas for CNG-capable vehicles (taking you twice around the world on a hectare's worth of biogas) as well as a fuel that can be used for the cogeneration of power and heat.

** Headline revised 12:18 pm Jan. 9, 2008

Comments

[DaveMart]

Google as I might, I can't come up with other estimates for biogas's potential in the developed world.
Anyone got any good links, or perhaps speak German so that we could get a better run-down on the original report?

[Tim Wint]

Right now, Honda makes a CNG vehicle that they can't get anyone to buy because everyone is going ga-ga over ethanol and hybrids. I can't understand the reluctance to pursue existing technology over something that is expensive and is less overall energy efficient.

[DavidJ]

Certainly seems an target for progress to me, where as I cannot see the advantage of converting biogas to ethanol such at Novus are doing.

[Roger Brown]

I have not had time to read the Biopact report, so perhaps I am making ignorant comments here, but I am skeptical about bioa gas 'easily replacing' natural gas. The energy content of manure is not that high, unsurprisingly, since it is that part of the biomass consumed by animals that they were unable to extract useful energy or nutrients from.

I came across a study on energy crops for anaerobic digestion once which concluded that cereal crops provide the highest yielding substrate. If we use cereal crops then we are back to the food vs fuel debate, plus issues of soil erosion, water use, fertlizer use etc. If methane production is more resource efficient than ethanol production the economics will be improved of course, but a huge improvement relative to ethanol is needed if we are going to use energy crops to support an OECD style consumer society.

I am not sure exactly what is meant by organic waste. Not all organic waste is a good substrate for methane producing bacteria. They do not digest celluose or lignin very well. Furthemore in truly sustainable food production systems the amount of "waste" generated will be far less than in today's industrial style agriculture/forestry. Crop residues left on the field prevent soil erosion, retain moisture, increase soil carbon content etc. Wood waste left to decompose on the forest floor would serve a simlar role in maintaining soil fertility.

I am convinced that biomass energy will play a signficant role a long term sustainable economy, but I am doubtful about it "easily supplying" a large fraction of our current level of energy consumption

[Mrweatherbee]

It seems that biogas might be too de-centralized to make distribution straightforward, and I assume there are gas cleaning and low supply pressure issues that have to be addressed.

If we are comparing biogas with ethanol, consider the transportation challenges with each. While ethanol feedstocks are challenging to transport due to low energy density and correspondingly large required volumes of material, biogas from hundreds or thousands of dislocated sites will require gas transport via pipeline. Beyond the issues above such as cleaning and pressurization, doubtless a new pipeline infrastructure will need to be built to support this if it were to truly and meaningfully displace/replace conventional natural gas.

[Tim]

I don't think de-centralization is a problem. If you look at a map
most states have lots of pipeline access. Also it can be used locally for heating, electricity generation and CNG for transportation.

[Danothebaldyheid]

Does anyone know if switchgrass can be used to make biogas? The recent bbc report at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7175397.stm
suggests that 320 barrels of bioethanol can be produced from one acre of grassland, which seems pretty good. If it can be gasified to twice that energy efficiency, it could be a significant contributor to a low CO2 future!

[Jonas]

Dano, yes, there are a few studies about using grass for biogas. Austria is pumping grass-based biomethane into a local grid.

For grasses grown in temperate climates, you can obtain some 2900 to 5000 cubic meters of methane.

For tropical grasses like sorghums or sugarcane, you get almost twice that.

On temperate grasses, see:

Annimari Lehtomäki, Biogas production from energy crops and residues [*.pdf], Jyväskylä Studies in Biological and Environmental Science, PhD thesis, Jyväskylä University, Finland, 2006

http://dissertations.jyu.fi/studbiol/9513925595.pdf

The video in our article about the German biogas study has been translated into English.

As you can see several European countries are feeding upgraded biogas into the gas grid. There's only one problem, the quality of the biomethane is too good - at least in Germany, which has an upper limit on heating value. Too good, can you imagine?!

Anyways, you can check out the vid here:
http://biopact.com/2008/01/report-biogas-can-replace-all-eu.html

Or at overstream:
http://www.overstream.net/view.php?oid=s2eqn5m3mqee

@ DavidJ: biogas-to-liquids would be very handy for remote communities that aren't connected to any grid, nor to any pipelines. That is, in the developing world.

Say a rural community has a very large sugarcane potential. But there's no city around to sell excess electricity from bagasse to. Or there's no pipeline. It could then be highly efficient to just use all the cane for biogas, and to convert it into liquid that can be transported out.

Converting all sugarcane biomass from a hectare, yields 130% more energy than if you were to convert it into ethanol + bagasse-power. But nobody in Brazil has looked at biogas from cane, because the ethanol industry there is fundamentally tied to producing sugar. Traditionally, and fundamentally, because the capacity to switch between sugar and ethanol is commercially interesting.

However, if biogas-to-liquids becomes efficient, this might change, especially in countries that are only beginning to think of bioenergy.

You should look at much of the developing world as one large zone of 'stranded biogas'.

[Kit P]

I was surprised to see the map of US pipelines on the Internet. Before 9/11, I used this map to identify customers for biogas and biomass gasification projects. The idea was to avoid places that had access to cheap natural gas. After 9/11, it was gone for awhile.

“The EIA has determined that the informational map displays here do not raise security concerns, based on the application of the Federal Geographic Data Committee’s Guidelines for Providing Appropriate Access to Geospatial Data in Response to Security Concerns “

Germany and other EU countries are providing leadership in biofuels. I have not looked at the ghg numbers for Germany but I have studied some of their technology. Look at Figure 1, http://www.epa.gov/agstar/pdf/2006digest.pdf to see a similar program has been effective in the US reducing ghg. Germany had already built 800 on farm anaerobic digesters.

[DaveMart]

Jonas said:
'For grasses grown in temperate climates, you can obtain some 2900 to 5000 cubic meters of methane.'
What's that? per hectare?
I would be grateful if some of you folk who know more about the subject could give me an idea of the areas available for this sort of use, and how cubic meters of gas translate into kwh, in short, how big is this resource?
Is it important, or marginal?

[bigTom]

A first shot at some numbers (hopefully I've got something wrong as they as disappointingly small.

The these that Jonas pointed at claimed something like 50MWhr per hectare (this must be per year).
A hectare is 10000 M**2.
If I divide by area, and hours/year I come up with average power of roughly 2/3watt/M**2. If I throw out an order of magnitude est of average insolation 180W/M**2, this means that the net efficiency sunlight to methane is only around .5%. That seems to me to be way to small if we hope to replace NG with this resource, although perhaps only 10% of all land.

So the real question is, is it feasable to replace over say the next 50years NG with biogas? If so at what cost? What are the likely environmental impacts? NG is probably our best current fuel, so if this is feasable at reasonable cost it would seem to be a good way to go. Why are we wasting time/subsidies on Ethanol?

[DaveMart]

bigTom, that sounds about the right efficiency factor, 0.5%
I suspected that the resource would be orders of magnitude too small to make a real difference - that is why we swapped burning wood for burning coal, although sugarcane seems to do quite well so I may have missed something.
The blurb about replacing Russian imports with biogas is in fact different to the story headline on this blog, as Norwegian, Dutch and British gas production is still substantial, although dropping, so Russian imports in no way equate to EU use.
As for why Ethanol - votes is corn producing states is the answer!

[bigTom]

Dvaemart:
.5% may not be as hopeless as it at first sounds. It is claimed that our entire energy use is only 10**-4 of the earths solar illumination. So at .5% that would require 2% of the area of the earth.

[DaveMart]

I quite like being Dvaemart!
I don't like those figures much.
At 2% of area of the earth, that is around 6% of the land surface.
This solution needs decent land, so we might be talking about 18% of arable land - OK for the States, not so good for China or India.
I'd put my money on electricity and batteries, although I also like the idea of mixed prairie grass and pyrolysis, which could use marginal land and wouldn't need the same inputs of fertiliser and so on, I believe.
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/energy-fuels/dn10759-humble-grasses-may-be-the-best-source-of-biofuel-.html
Perhaps this gives us some handle on the size of the resource from agriculture, and personally I would prefer prairie to more intensive farming!
Carbon sequestration through agrichar would be nice too.
http://www.ea2020.org/drupal/node/288
Food for people in the Sahel and so on can't do any harm as a last benefit.

[JoSmith]

Transcript of German Biogas Report:
Part One:
“ We present an as yet unpublished study which contains amazing findings. Biogas obtained from energy crops and manure could soon replace all imports of natural gas from Russia. What is more, it can even cover the total current gas needs of the entire European Union. Natural Gas takes up to 300 million years to form – biogas only one farming season. With biogas from one hectare ( 2.47 acres ) of maize, one can travel 70,000 kilometers ( 43,500 miles ). That is: almost two times around the earth. And all this without emitting climate destructive carbon dioxide gas. This presents an opportunity for the environment, for farmers, and for Germany, world leader in biogas technologies. Steffen Judzikowski and Hans Koberstein report. The cows of Jozef Pellmeyer are hardly profitable any longer. Milk prices are very low. That’s why the farmer bets on biogas. Ten years ago, he installed a first biogas plant at his farm. With maize he grows himself and with organic waste from the region – In my plant, I process organic waste such as food residues, and oil processing residues, as well as waste from my farming activities, and of course manure from livestock. All this biomass is converted into biogas – which is used to generate electricity. The facility heats and ferments the waste. This way environmentally friendly biogas is obtained. The waste resulting from biomass production, becomes fertilizer used by Pellmeyer on his fields. The biogas fuels gas engines which generate electricity – enough for 1,000 households. But Pellmeyer wants more. The next step is to feed biogas into the natural gas network. That’s why I have built another plant. I think this holds a great future. Biogas in the Natural Gas Grid. The future has already arrived here in Nieder Rheine. Pioneering work – The biogas is purified and upgraded to natural gas quality. It enters the Germany-wide gas network. Via this pipe, it enters the Germany-wide gas network. From here, it is pumped to the places that consume most electricity and heat: the cities. For the chief of the public utility of the city of Aachen, Dieter Attig, this is only the beginning. Biogas can break the monopoly of gas suppliers. Biogas is a decentralized technology. Especially public utilities can take advantage of this. We as the city of Aachen, want to build, together with many other public utilities, a pan-German biogas network. We want to construct a large number of biogas plants across the country and even more cogeneration power plants to generate electricity and heat from the biogas. The biogas plant here is fed with energy crops such as maize and fresh rye grown on 900 hectares ( 2,250 acres ) of land nearby. Enough to supply heat and power to 5,000 households living around Aachen. But the potential of biogas is much larger still. This is known by a study published by the Oko-Instituts and the Instituts fur Energetik in Leipzig. “Frontal 21” had the opportunity to look into the study. It states: “By 2020, biogas can replace…gas imported by pipeline from Russia…completely.” The scientists found that alongside the natural gas pipelines there is enough land available to grow energy crops. The biogas can be produced in a decentralized manner (me: local micro-plants along the NG pipeline) and fed into the entire main gas network to cover all of EU’s needs. In such a scenario, we would be creating 2.5 million new jobs. We would be tackling climate change in a serious way. And we would achieve energy security, because each year we can produce new biogas. Contrary to natural gas fields, which get depleted, biogas is renewable. It never runs out. A great opportunity. And research into energy crops has only just begun. Professor Zeddies of the University of Hohenheim shows the plant sorghum. The plant yields 50% more biogas than maize…”

[JoSmith]

Transcript of German Biogas Report:
Part Two:
“This is the type of crops farmers have been waiting for. This comes at the perfect time, because up till now, we produced a lot of excess food that had to be exported with taxpayer’s money. And we had to set aside farmland (EU policy). We can at last abandon this policy. This generates employment in rural areas and economic opportunities in agriculture. And not only in agriculture. The firm Schmack Biogas in Bavaria’s Schwandorf recently doubled its number of employees to 350. CEO Ulrich Schmack built its first biogas plant 12 years ago. Today, he exports all over the world, even to the U.S., and is a world leader in biogas technology. Today we can produce 3 times as much biogas from plants with the same volume, as 5 years ago. And over the next 5 years, we project this yield to double yet again. Enormous progress in research and development. There is only one problem that can jeopardize the boom: In many places, the upgraded biogas is too good for the natural gas network. That is: Its heating value is too high. And Germany’s bureaucracy imposes strict norms for the heating value: It should not be higher than permitted. The logic behind this rule is strange: It says citizens deserve good services, but only at the lower end of the scale. Citizens don’t deserve good services at the higher end. They are not entitled to the best services even when they are available. That’s the idea behind the law. I don’t see the sense in this, because citizens pay for a minimum service. If they happen to receive more than this, then the better for them. They will obviously be pleased. But German law is not meant to please. In other countries, like Switzerland, people are startled. Here, biogas is fed into the natural gas grid in this biogas facility near Zurich. Entirely without any upper quality limit. A lower limit is smart, because we want to guarantee quality energy. But imposing an upper limit is senseless, because the farmer or biogas producer decides for himself whether he wants to exceed the minimum standard to deliver better gas than is required. There’s no upper limit for quality in Switzerland. Only in Germany there’s such an upper limit. We shouldn’t burden the individual biogas producer who feeds biogas into the gas network. Instead, we need a law that obligates the pipeline operators to treat biogas in the same way as natural gas, and to allow both types of gas to flow parallel through the net. According to the Green Party, the Government must now act. They commissioned the biogas study. We need a law in Germany – a biogas feed-in law – that allows new biogas producers to enter the sector and gives them access to the natural gas network. This will give the breakthrough technology boost to biogas in Germany. A ‘biogas feed-in law’. This means: to attract biogas investments, the consumer will have to pay more. The Christian Democrats who control the Government hesitate. Their adage is: “Wait and see”. They want to wait until the general law on renewable energies has been rewritten – Aren’t you being too hesitant? Don’t we need action now, to give the sector a boost? But the sector is already booming. The sector is growing by 40% per year. So I think we are not denying anyone any opportunity by waiting until the Government presents its data on renewables this year, which we, as the Parliament, will use to act. Farmers like Pellmeyer and many others want to start feeding biogas into the natural gas grid this year. Only hesitant politicians and German bureaurocrats are standing in the way of the biogas boom. Biogas as the basis for energy independence and therefore political independence from Putin’s Gazprom – a very charming proposal indeed.”

[DaveMart]

Terrific job in the translation - thanks very much!

[gtr]

Perhaps it would make more sense to combust the biomass directly (instead of fermenting it and thus reducing net energy) for combined electric and heat, then shift the present consumption of the more energy-dense natgas to transportation use? Longer term, continue to use biomass fired electric generation to energize electric vehicles, further reducing net fossil inputs.

[gtr]

more precisely, should have included "digesting" in addition to fermenting

[Kit P]

“Perhaps it would make more sense to combust the biomass directly ...”

It depends on the the amount of moisture in the biomass. Dairy cow manure has lots of water and nutrients. Anaerobic digesters (AD) are a more efficient way to process nutrients to a organic fertilizer which has more value than than the energy. Think about it. Ammonia is produced with natural gas.

Dairy cow manure also has lots of enzymes. Blending in energy crops that with a higher carbon content produces more energy and more compost. I read one report where a new AD produced twice as much biogas as was theoretically possible. The dairy used recycled paper for bedding. One of the universities in Arizona or New Mexico, did research that 10% dairy farm manure added to clean organic waste headed to a landfill.

The feasibility study we did with the local utility found that we had a potential of 250 MWe @ a 90% capacity factor in the region.

[Roger Brown]

With biogas from one hectare ( 2.47 acres ) of maize, one can travel 70,000 kilometers ( 43,500 miles ). That is: almost two times around the earth.

The above translation reads like a Sunday supplement puff piece rather than a summary of a scientific study. At least they should give us the gas yield per hectare rather than a PR statistic like the one quoted above. And, by the way, if methane becomes a major transportation fuel then European per capita consumption will rise substantially above present levels.

The above translation does make it clear that cereal crops (corn, rye) are the preferred bio gas substrates, so that bio gas production is clearly competing for prime farm land. Methane production from biomass may be economically superior to ethanol, but the question that need to be addressed how much of it can we afford to produce without driving up the costs of food to unacceptable levels.

[gtr]

Kit P:

good point, however in the context of the German study and my proposal, it appears the vast majority of biomass being converted to biogas had not been through a bovine digester first.

hmmm ... how to put a practical methane tap on the bovines (and other ruminants for that matter) prior to the manure step ... ;)

[DaveMart]

Roger, it looks to me as though this is not the original report, but rather a piece written about it in German, which our friend on this blog has kindly translated.
Kit will correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think there is competition for land here, as you use the waste from the corn and so on to make the biogas, not the corn itself, unlike with ethanol production.
As for the car going around thee world and so on, I don't think they are actually proposing using the biogas for transport - they have just chosen a clumsy illustration.

[Roger Brown]

Dave

I am pretty sure that they are using the actual grain from energy crops as part the bio gas substrate. Here a link to an article about German bio gas production which clearly states that potential contribution of energy crops to bio gas production is much larger than agricultural waste or manure. Corn is mentioned as the preferred crop at present.

http://www.biomassmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=1156

I realize the above translation is not the detailed study, but it is still described as as Transcript of German Biogas Report: and begins with the sentence:

We present an as yet unpublished study which contains amazing findings. Biogas obtained from energy crops and manure could soon replace all imports of natural gas from Russia. What is more, it can even cover the total current gas needs of the entire European Union.

If they are presenting as study, they ought to be held a slightly higher standard than the Sunday supplements.

[DaveMart]

Thanks for the link, Roger - they sure are using the actual corn cobs.
I'm not sure if they have to technically though,as it is political because the whole thing runs under the EU set-aside policy, so they couldn't use it for food if they wanted to as the regulations are just nuts - government policy!