Biogas

"We need to handle this waste somehow." Meltem Urgun Demirtas For companies interested in anaerobic digestion, however, producing methane is the goal. Because these facilities are sealed up, the mixture of methane and carbon dioxide produced by microbes, called biogas, can be captured and purified into biomethane, which can be used as a replacement for natural gas. Some producers use this biomethane (also called renewable natural gas) or the unpurified biogas on-site, burning it to power their facilities. Others sell…

Shell SHEL -0.55% PLC has agreed to buy a European producer of biogas for nearly $2 billion, the latest move by a major oil and gas company to push into renewable fuels. The London-based company said Monday it would buy Denmark’s Nature Energy Biogas A/S, which produces a renewable fuel called biomethane that can replace conventional natural gas in heavy road and marine transport, industry and heating. Nature Energy is Europe’s…

Maruti Suzuki is developing bio-gas powered engines for use in its cars sold in the Indian market. Called Compressed Bio-Gas (CBG), this fuel is similar to CNG in terms of calorific value. Unlike CNG, which is extracted from under the earth, compressed bio-gas (CBG) is produced by  removing hydrogen sulphide, carbon dioxide and water vapour from bio-gas produced from organic matter. The recently launched Maruti Alto K10 could be one of the many Maruti Suzuki cars to get a compressed bio-gas compliant engine.…

It seems like magic: In millions of operations scattered around the globe (some big, some very small), waste is transformed into energy. Landfilled garbage, sewage, and farm effluent are processed into burnable biogas, which can be used as a substitute for natural gas, a fossil fuel. Unlike natural gas,which sits in limited supply deep underground, biogas is considered a renewable source of energy. As long as humans continue to poop and make trash, there can be more biogas. But, though it’s been hailed as an…