Biogas should be more than a 0.5% renewable energy for Ireland
Over 9,000 biogas plants have been built in Germany since the year 2000, due to the positive stimulus provided by the German government over a decade.
The biogas (anaerobic digestion, AD) industry has also flourished in the UK over the past five years, with more than 180 plants, and more than 200 others in the development pipeline.
Biogas is catching on across the border in Northern Ireland, with some digesters capable of processing 50,000 tonnes of organic material per year.
In fact, some southern farmers are believed to have contracted to supply digesters in Northern Ireland with miscanthus, a renewable energy crop which proved a disaster for Irish growers, most of whom are ploughing it out of their fields.
Farmers were paid grants to establish miscanthus crops, but were eventually left with no-one to sell the material to for energy generation.
Miscanthus is in the biomass category, which is 5% of Ireland’s renewables, But biogas is even further behind, at less than 0.5%.
Wind turbines contribute 80% of our renewable energy; the only other source of any significance is hydro energy, at nearly 10%.
It isn’t as if the Government isn’t under pressure to develop renewables.
The 2009 EU renewable energy directive set Ireland a legally binding target of meeting 16% of our energy requirements from renewable sources by 2020.
Provisional figures provided by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, for 2014 showed that only 8.6% of Ireland’s energy was renewable.
The Government recognises that wind must be complemented by other policies to meet our renewable energy ambitions.
They were told last week that AD to produce biogas is a simple, proven, practical biological recycling technology, which can create 2,250 direct permanent jobs, with many more in construction, spread across Ireland.
This assessment came from Cré, the Composting and Anaerobic Digestion Association of Ireland, and IrBEA, representing bioenergy companies.
They say AD can power 20% of Irish homes, or replace 7.5% of the fossil-based natural gas with renewable “green” gas, via the national gas grid.
According to Bord na Mona, which questions availability of feedstock for AD, there is scope for three regional digesters processing 150,000 to 200,000 tonnes of waste per annum.
In 2011 the Joint Oireathas Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources reported potential for 1,000 AD plants averaging 380 kilowatts in size.
A Bord Gais report stated that up to 7.5% of renewable gas demand in Ireland could come from biomethane produced by AD, replacing €170m of imports.
Either way, nothing will happen while Ireland continues with one of the EU’s lowest Government incentives for anaerobic digestion.
Rural Ireland could be the big loser if Ireland doesn’t follow other EU member states down the biogas road.
There’s more than significant rural job creation at stake.
By maximising methane capture in controlled conditions, AD is one of the better ways of reducing Ireland’s one third of human- induced greenhouse gas emissions which originate in agriculture.
The EU requirement to reduce emissions 20% below the 2005 level by 2020 puts our agriculture under pressure, but AD could help significantly.
In the US, governemnt agencies estimated that biogas recovery on about 8,000 farms could was the equivalent of taking 6.5 million cars off the road.
Methane as a greenhouse gas is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
AD reduces methane emissions from stored slurry and manure; reduces nitrous oxide emissions; replaces fossil fuel; and can reduce vehicle emissions, as a cleaner fuel.
Researchers at the University of Southern Denmark calculated that emissions of 65 to 150kg of carbon dioxide are saved per ton of biomass treated in anaerobic digestion.
