Biogas passes smell test

EDMONTON July 29 /Troy Media/ -- Going green by turning waste into energy sounds like an idea everyone can agree on. But that consensus can fracture when the strategy means doing something with garbage other than simply hauling it to a landfill, far from the nearest homeowners.

If moving to a more environmentally sound and sustainable method of dealing with waste includes a biogas plant, which converts organic matter into vehicle fuel, electric power and compost, there will almost certainly arise the NIMBY - Not In My Backyard - syndrome.

But it isn’t all bad news. In fact, in Europe, biogas plants dot the landscape, and live very well with their neighbours.

Germany alone has thousands of plants using anaerobic digestion to mine organic waste for energy, a development spurred by governments trying to enhance efforts at boosting recycling and improving energy efficiency.

A study commissioned last year by the German Biogas Association, the city council of Aachen and the Green faction of the German Bundestag showed the potential for biogas in Europe. The report concluded that Germany alone can produce more biogas by 2020 than all of the EU's current natural gas imports from Russia.

"The biogas sector is booming in Germany and has become the continent's fastest renewable energy sector,'' says Biopact, a Brussels-based group which fosters mutually beneficial 'energy relationships' between Europe and Africa.

"Gaseous biofuel can be produced in a decentralized manner, it is highly efficient - yielding more than twice as much energy per hectare of energy crops than ethanol from similar crops - and it can be obtained in a straightforward way from a large variety of biomass resources (organic waste, manure, dedicated energy crops). What is more, the fuel has two highly efficient uses: as a gas for CNG (compressed natural gas)-capable vehicles (taking you twice around the world on a hectare's worth of biogas) as well as a fuel that can be used for the cogeneration of power and heat. Meanwhile, advances in biogas technology, microbiology and crop engineering have made production even more efficient," Biopact reports.

While the benefits of biogas systems are widely known, public perceptions about biogas plants and anaerobic digestion can be a barrier. When people learn there are plans for a plant in their community, their initial reaction is often 'not in my backyard.' Fears of unpleasant odours, noise, increased traffic and lower property values associated with living near a plant are common.

The European experience, however, suggests these concerns have largely been answered with advances in waste-to-energy technology.

The Danish Environmental Agency, for example, says that while some biogas plants may never be completely odourless, good planning can alleviate nuisances such as smell, increased traffic and the worry over falling property values for homeowners.

"It would be sensible to keep a good distance to neighbours. Although a new plant is dimensioned to not cause nuisances to the neighbours, unintended nuisances are bound to occur. A fair estimate for distance would be 500 metres to housing and other residential areas. The distance to single dwellings in the open countryside should be estimated case by case,'' according to the DEA. A recent report done for the agency studied 11 common biogas plants and found only one case where a plant was blamed for lower property values.

Swedish Biogas International AB, a major player in the industry, reports that the biogas plant in Linkoping, Sweden, had some serious odour problems about 10 years ago "with the result that the media and private opinion turned against biogas production."

"As the process-development work has yielded results, this opinion has changed - as reflected in an issue of the local newspaper in 2005 explaining that the biogas plant no longer smells. The value of this change from a marketing and sales point of view is of course considerable.''

Adam Gagnon, a program manager of transportation and energy efficiency with Climate Change Central, a public-private, not-for-profit Alberta, Canada-based organization formed to deal with climate change challenges, said opposition to biogas plants is par for the course.

"Every time there's a good-news story with an environmental benefit, there tends to be people who push back on the opposite side,'' he said.

Gagnon said information is crucial to gaining public acceptance of biogas plants. Holding public forums and open houses "where you can talk about what it is and what it isn't; essentially communicating the look of it, and understanding what it is and how it operates,'' can go a long way in easing public anxiety about having a biogas plant in their neighbourhood, he said.

In Britain, the government recently announced an 'anaerobic digestion roadshow' to travel the country demonstrating to communities how the technology works.

Another way to calm nervous neighbours is by using proven, state-of-the-art biogas technology.

Switzerland has been at the leading edge of biogas systems. A Swiss-based technology marketed under the Kompogas brand operates in 36 biogas plants around the world.

These plants use biogenous matter such as kitchen scraps and yard waste as feedstock. After collection, the waste is sorted to remove foreign matter before being fed into a fermenter, or anaerobic digester, where micro-organisms turn the organic substance in the material into compost and biogas, which can be used as vehicle fuel - sold under the Kompogas brand at service stations in Europe - or for co-generation units to provide electric power.

This 'thermophile fermentation process' takes place free of oxygen at temperatures of 55C to 60C and takes 15 to 20 days. Depending on the specific composition of the biogenous waste, between 105 and 130 cubic metres of biogas, or biomethane, is produced per tonne, the equivalent of about 70 litres of gasoline. Kompogas is today considered to be one of the most environmentally friendly, CO2-neutral sources of energy available.

Organic waste is renewable and in large supply, accounting for a third of all waste produced and Scott MacKay, CEO of Alberta-based Sustainable Energy Holdings Ltd., is working to bring Kompogas to North America and turn that waste into energy. SEHL has be set up to exclusively market the Kompogas technology in both Canada and the United States.

Since the first Kompogas plant began operating in 1991, the biogas market in Europe has grown rapidly. By 2011, Kompogas expects to be processing a total of one million tonnes of organic waste at 41 plants.

MacKay is aiming to have the first North American Kompogas plant on-stream by 2010 with growth projections based on the European model. By 2021, MacKay hopes to have 30 plants in North America, each processing 20,000 tonnes of waste annually. The plants would operate as public-private partnerships.

There are other technologies competing with Kompogas, but MacKay said the Swiss company has perfected the system for anaerobic digestion. Kompogas boasts proven technology and 17 years of operation without a mechanical or process failure.

Kompogas is also the market leader, building 25 percent of the anaerobic digestion facilities since 2000 and is recognized by biogas associations around the world for being the best process for source separated organics.

MacKay said Kompogas plants have a reputation for avoiding the nuisances sometimes associated with biogas.

In Switzerland, plants are built at least a quarter mile from the nearest housing projects and Kompogas employs an air-wash system to ensure no foul smells leave the plant.

The fermenters used "don't make any noise; they are totally silent,'' MacKay said.

But what about increased traffic and pollution from waste haulers coming and going?

"We would try to switch the waste haulers over to natural gas vehicles so there is less pollution. And we would build in a light industrial area where there would be traffic anyway,'' MacKay said."So long as they don't use a lot of water, they don't smell or have any nasty by-products, everybody's happy.''

In fact, MacKay said, a Kompogas plant can go up and start operating without anyone really noticing, so light is the impact on a neighbouring community.

Tim Weis, a senior technology and energy policy adviser with the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental think-tank, said that while "no one wants to live downwind of anything,'' worries about foul smells from a biogas plant need not be an issue.

"If you're putting a biogas plant where there already is a dump or manure, that would actually clean a lot of those smells up," Weis said.

"There are often NIMBY issues with wind turbines and Denmark and Germany have had years of experience with this, as well as biogas systems,” Weis said. “One of the things these communities have done to help mitigate these issues is to encourage co-operative ownership of these plants with the local land owners and the communities."

Support for the bioenergy sector took a major step forward last May with the announcement in Sweden of the formation of the World Bioenergy Association. The aim of the new organization is to be a global voice for bioenergy, and to promote its use.

"The World Bioenergy Association will also participate in the development of certifications systems to ensure that the fuels are produced in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way, and under acceptable working and social conditions,'' the Swedish Bioenergy Association said in a statement launching the new group.

"The organization will also promote trade with biofuels and biomass, standardization of fuels, technical development and research. An important task is to monitor potentials for bioenergy in different parts of the world. The organization is open for national and regional bioenergy associations, and for associated commercial enterprises in the bioenergy field. The reason for this initiative, taken by the Swedish Bioenergy Association, Svebio, is that up to now there hasn’t been any organization for the bioenergy business on the global level. This has been seen by many as a problem, especially when biofuels are increasingly questioned in the public debate. Increasing the use of bioenergy is necessary, considering the high prices of fossil fuels and the impact on the climate from fossil fuels.''

Keywords: going green, waste into energy, biogas, bioenergy sector, foul smell, smell test

News Beats: Environment