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It's all gone to sh...
I never thought I'd end up writing about sewage for a living, but increasingly that is what appears to be happening.
While the rapid expansion of the solar and wind energy industries has attracted miles of column inches and billions in venture capital, the biogas sector that is in many ways more mature, cost effective and environmentally friendly than its high profile rivals has quietly operated on the margins of the renewables sector.
Like a sewage works stuck out on the edge of town, everyone accepts that it is pretty important, but no one wants to pay it too much attention.
In many ways this is understandable. Regardless of whether you dress the underlying feedstock up as organic waste, compost, or manure, these systems are typically powered by a combination or rotting food and sewage - and no one likes to talk about that.
And yet, if people can get over their distaste for the world of sanitation, biogas technologies represent a great environmental and commercial opportunity.
The technology is remarkable simple, usually involving little more than anaerobic digestion plants and combined heat and power systems, both of which are now relatively mature. All you need to do is shovel in the waste, add some enzymes to speed up the natural break down of the material, capture the resulting gas and burn it off to create heat and power. It's obviously a little bit more complicated than that, but not much.
The fuel source is also entirely renewable and all but free, while the technology is capable of producing both energy and fertiliser, creating a sustainable closed loop system.
Moreover, it has the ability to kill two birds with one stone, cutting carbon emissions by replacing fossil fuel based energy, while also capturing methane - itself a potent greenhouse gas.
When you look at these advantages it is surprising that it has taken so long for people to realise that there is a huge commercial opportunity for those that can stand the smell, but slowly that now seems to be changing.
Plans for the world's first urban biogas pipe network in the German city of Lünen were recently unveiled and a number of UK councils are said to be watching the trial closely to see if similar projects could work over here.
Meanwhile, German biogas firm Agri.capital recently announced it had secured 60m in equity funding - no mean fit in the current climate - to help fund expansion plans.
But what is most exciting about the technology is the sheer scale of the opportunity. A study earlier this year from the UK government, which has somewhat belatedly signalled its support for the sector, calculated that deploying anaerobic digestion technologies across the UK's farming sector could generate enough heat and electricity to power two million homes.
A similar study for National Grid went further still, estimating that harnessing all the UK's organic waste streams, including farm, food and wood waste, as well as sewage, could generate enough biogas to heat half the homes in the country.
It calculated that a UK-wide biogas network could be developed for £10bn, which might sound a lot but is likely to be significantly cheaper than generating a similar amount of energy from other forms of renewable energy such as wind power.
When you consider the construction costs associated with building offshore wind farms miles from population centres and then connecting them to the grid, compared with the cost of installing an anaerobic digestor at a sewage plant - which by definition is close to centres of population - and then laying down some new pipes to connect it to a small scale CHP system, you start to see bbiogas networks have the potential to be a far cheaper and simpler option.
Whether the strength of this commercial case can encourage the power brokers in Whitehall and the City to step up investment in the less than glamorous world of sewage remains to be seen, but, as they say in Yorkshire, where there's muck, there's brass.
I am studying 'Green Technologies' and all for utilising waste for local CHP systems, but would that not mean that the addition of farm waste would need to be brought into a centralised location? What is the return nutrient value of the CHP waste as a fertiliser? And would the fertiliser produced be suitable for use in NVZs?
Posted by :Colin McLachlan | June 4, 2009 8:31 AM
What manufacturers sell the equipment that would allow an entrepaneur the opportunity to capitalize on this type of business in the United States?
Posted by :Byron | June 7, 2009 3:43 PM
This may sound interesting to academics and to folks trying to get venture capital to fund wild goose chases, but it is not economically viable. Present sewage collection requires too much water to transport solid waste and the sewage is contaminated with industrial hazardous waste which when concentrated for a fuel source, merely produces a mass of hazardous material requiring ellimination. Any incineration emits polution and requires more energy. The water component requires expensive separation and treatment. Any other collection via vehicular methods is too expensive and produces insufficient volumes to make such energy production practical.
Posted by :RUFUS | June 8, 2009 2:00 PM
Wrong data from UN in renewable invests:
1) You don't know what is a renewable energy source and many people in France are classifying the nuclear power among the renewables though the nuclear wastes.
2) It is the same thing for hydropower ressources: are they renewable because of the strengh of the river current? do they belong to electricity which is not renewable?
Morover we learned that century,of the melting of the glacier and of the change of the ecosystem that there is any more river flowing for ever.
3) The same day you were greatings UN for its wrong data http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2243434/renewables-155bn-investment
Reuter has been telling of the announce a new dam in the heart of the amazonian rainforest which is definitly a non renewable invest.
Posted by :meleze | June 9, 2009 9:22 AM
Surely we are missing the point here? There is an existing national gas grid in the UK which can be used to transport biogas to the point of use in the home. Use of biogas for heating and cooking is much more efficient than using it in a CHP plant, many of which do not have an adequate heat load. Government incentives towards electricity production (35% efficiency using a gas engine) have distorted the market when we could be achieving 90%+ efficiency with the same material in a condensing boiler. An incentive for the injection of biogas into the grid needs to be found.
Posted by :Paddy Thompson | June 10, 2009 2:00 PM
But what do you do with the sewage sludge that remains? Dump it in huge heaps in the countryside, where it stinks for months! We have a lot of sludge used on our neighbouring farms as fertiliser, but the stench is unbearable on a humid day. No-one can sell their houses because of the appalling smell.
Don't get me wrong - I think that it should be used as a fertiliser, but surely, rules should dictate that it has to be ploughed-in within a couple of days to stop the smell. The farms around here have permanent piles of it 12 months of the year and the stench travels 2 miles.
Posted by :septic tank | June 23, 2009 11:22 AM
12 months of the year and the stench travels 2 miles.
Posted by :straightener chi | July 30, 2009 3:24 AM
I live 3 miles from a farm that stores it and uses it on the land and when the wind is in the wrong direction you can't sleep with the windows open for the stench.
The problem is that arable farms have crops growing for most of the year and they can't plough it in. They have to store it until harvest, and so it stinks almost all year round.
Surely there must be a way of de-odourising the stuff or the whole concept is going to be a non-starter. Once everyone is gagging on the smell of the by-product, no-one will want biogas at any price.
Posted by :septic tank systems | August 2, 2009 11:05 AM
Septic tank effluent has the same problem with the sludge. It gets taken to sewage works and dewatered, but the septic tank sludge still has to be disposed of and ends up on your stinking piles . In some countries they are experimenting with worms which eat the septic sludge and convert it to compost which is odourless. Why don't we do that here?
Posted by :Tommy | August 2, 2009 11:13 AM
Interestingly, there appears a similar issue with waste food and green garden waste and the recycling of it is an anaerobic activity when composted, producing foul smelling gases such as methane. However, methane is flamable and can be collected if composting is carried out indoors. It can then be used to provide heat and power
Posted by :it-green recycling | September 9, 2009 9:26 PM
We are a company producing anaerobic digesters for farms and campsites. We strongly believe in microgeneration, and that an AD unit should compliment an existing business rather than be the business itself.
The large AD units common on the continent have not worked as they are inefficient on a number of levels. Firstly they are not gastight, secondly they are continually introducing new feedstock that upsets the bacteria in the system and thirdly they rely on bringing in feedstock from all over the area. This is bulky, requires an expensive infrastructure is and unpopular with the neighbours. Our systems are running on neat cow slurry, dry matter content of between 8 to 12%, much to everyones amazement. It produces plenty of gas.
It is certainly a very exciting time for AD in this country.
Posted by :Juliet de Falbe | September 18, 2009 11:02 AM
Juliet what is the name of your company? Do you have a website or contact details or does anyone know what this company is that does AD for small business and campsites that he refers to?
Posted by :Keith Lynch | January 19, 2010 9:47 PM