How anaerobic digestion could help deliver the UK’s Net Zero ambition
Opinion | By Jon Hughes, Head of Communications, Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association (ADBA) > Last October, the UK government published its Net Zero strategy, in which it acknowledged the role that anaerobic digestion (AD), biogas and biomethane could play in achieving the country’s targets.
With over 680 plants currently in operation, the AD industry can immediately help reduce the carbon footprint of the UK’s hardest-to-decarbonise sectors of heat, transport, agriculture, and waste management.
The process consists of taking the organic wastes we humans produce (food waste, sewage, animal manures and slurries, etc.) and digesting them under anaerobic conditions – i.e., deprived of oxygen. The outputs are, on one hand, a green gas – biogas – which, upgraded to biomethane, can be injected into the gas grid for heating, and used as a transport fuel for large vehicles such as HGVs, buses and refuse collection lorries, and, on the other hand, a solid residue – digestate – which can be used in agriculture as a biofertiliser. AD also produces bio-CO2, which is needed in the food and drink sector, which currently suffers from a shortage of that particular gas, as well as a range of other bioproducts.
The AD technology is sophisticated, readily available, and ready to deploy at scale.With the right enabling environment, it could help displace fossil-based resources and deliver tens of thousands of green, skilled jobs. It can support the transition from oil and gas to renewable energy as well as enhance rural resilience, and, critically in these challenging times, energy, and food security. AD is also a cornerstone in developing a sustainable, circular economy that generates valuable bioresources out of naturally produced organic waste.
While welcoming the Net Zero strategy, ADBA believes that it significantly underestimates the contribution that the sector can make in decarbonising the UK economy.
For example, under the Green Gas Support Scheme government aims to triple the injection of biomethane in the gas grid by 2030, yet ADBA’s modelling suggests that the industry could deliver far more, increasing its biomethane production nine-fold, to 900,000m3/h – enough to heat over 4.5 million homes each year.
Transport is responsible for 27% of the UK’s current greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, the AD industry generates enough biogas to fuel 21% of all HGVs operating in the UK. At full potential, an estimated 76TWh of biomethane could be produced each year – enough to fuel an additional 76% of all HGVs. In total, biomethane could fuel 97% of all HGVs by 2030.
Yet the Net Zero Strategy places too much emphasis on as-yet unproven technologies, such as hydrogen and direct air capture and storage. This happens at the expense of established, ready to deliver technologies such as AD.
The UK Government would do well to listen to the many internationally renowned voices at the table: the UN describes AD as a low-cost, readily available technology, a ‘win-win-win-win-win’ technology; the IEA say AD is the best exemplifier to catalyse the transition to a circular economy; and WRAP says that, where separate food waste collections are introduced, it leads to a reduction in food waste generation.
These major climate wins and behavioural changes could be started today, while clearly aligning with the objectives of the Strategy.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued part two its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) at the end of February – 3,767 pages of scientific record against which this generation will be held to account.
Commenting on the report, UN secretary-general António Guterres described it as “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.”
Entitled Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, the report says, “Half measures are no longer an option”. Systems change is now demanded, “transformation and system transitions in energy; land, ocean, coastal and freshwater ecosystems; urban, rural and infrastructure; and industry and society.”
AD delivers systems change by being the gateway to a new era of organic waste management, offering energy and food security and action on climate change.
The technology is here – what we need now is the political will to deliver the climate leadership so urgently required.
On 27th April, as part of Green Infrastructure Week, ADBA will be hosting a webinar on Food Waste Recycling – For details and to register, click here.
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