Anaerobic Digestion & Biogas
For Anaerobic digestion work, BEO work with Vicky Heaslop. Vicky is an AD consultant with 17 years experience.
Anaerobic digestion could be simply summed up as using a waste product to create energy. Bacteria ferments in organic waste to produce biogas which is 65% methane and can be used for heating and electricity generation. Anaerobic means an “absence of air” which is an essential part of the environment in which the creation of this energy occurs. The digester itself is a warmed, sealed and airless container. A mixed population of bacteria breaks down residues from livestock farming and the food processing industries and turns them into sugars and acids which are then decomposed to produce the final gas.
Globally, there are a large amount of small biogas plants. In India and China they are in widespread use for human and other animal wastes. Small biogas plants have low cost design. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Chinese government initiated a biogas programme that resulted in more than 7 million digesters. It is estimated that around half of these are still in use and serve around 20 million people. In the 1970s the Indian government invested in AD and it now has approximately 1 million plants in operation.
In the EU, the AD leaders are Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Austria. In the last decade, there has been an explosion of farm based ADs in the latter two countries. In Germany in 2006, there were about 4000 plants totaling almost 900MW of electricity capacity (AD also produces gas that can be used for heating). The slowdown in development in Germany is being caused by a shortage of contractors to build the plants.
In Ireland, there are 4 on-farm AD plants in the Republic of Ireland and 2 on-farm in Northern Ireland. There are 8 sewage treatment plants and 4 industrial AD plants. 9 plants were offered AER VI contracts totaling 2MW.
Theoretically 561MW could be generated in Ireland if every bit of waste was collected. Feasibly, 45MW could be generated. According to a 1996 ESBI/ETSU survey 7MW could practically be generated. It should be noted that these figures are based on electricity generation and that this does not include heat generation from biogas.
According to a 2002 SEI briefing note a total of 250 jobs could be created in Ireland relating to biogas fueled AD.
-
Globally, 530 million to 790 million tones of methane are released into the atmosphere from the decomposition of biomass. This is a waste of an energy resource.
-
There is anecdotal evidence that between 1000 and 1600, biogas was used to heat bath water in Persia and Assyria.
-
The first AD plant was built at a Leper colony in Bombay, India in 1859.
-
In 1974 the EEC encouraged promotion and research into AD because of an energy crisis.
-
By 1980, AD was widely used to treat sludge and wastewater in Muncipal and Industrial Wastewater treatment plants.
Please feel free to contact BEO if you have a query relating to AD or biogas in Ireland.