How waste food can reduce our reliance on natural gas

At a large industrial facility not far south-west of Ireland’s capital Dublin, one man says old food waste and pig manure can help Europe fight climate change – and reduce its reliance on Russia for energy. Billy Costello explains that decaying organic matter releases biogas, which firms like Green Generation, the one he directs, can collect and purify to produce methane, or biomethane as it’s called when it comes from such sources.

It’s an opportunity to find sources of energy other than the natural gas supplied by Russia and thereby distance ourselves from Vladimir Putin’s regime, he argues: “The best thing is if you can make the gas, put it in and replace Putin.”  

European governments have faced a difficult scenario since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, on one hand introducing sanctions against Putin’s regime and wealthy businessmen close to him, while on the other continuing to buy millions of dollars of gas every day from Russia. Europe gets roughly 40% of its natural gas from Russia and some countries have been reluctant to follow the US in imposing a ban on imports of Russian fossil fuels.

This is why the European Commission recently decided to set new, ambitious targets for biomethane production and other fuel sources in Europe. President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said in a statement, “We must become independent from Russian oil, coal and gas. We simply cannot rely on a supplier who explicitly threatens us.”

It means replacing around 150 billion cubic metres (bcm) of Russian gas with gas from other sources and using a variety of alternative energies too. The Commission hopes that biomethane can supplant the equivalent of 35bcm by 2030, a more than 10-fold increase from today’s European biomethane output of only around 3bcm.

At the Green Generation plant, out-of-date food from a supermarket chain, manure from a nearby pig farm and other waste is heaved into a giant anaerobic digester. Costello has a range of buyers for the biomethane that he collects from this system, including clients in the UK, who use it in gas-powered road vehicles.

Biomethane, being chemically identical to natural gas, can also be burned to make electricity or sent via a gas grid to household boilers. About half of the biomethane consumed in Europe in 2015 was used for home heating.

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There are two key differences between natural gas and biomethane, though. Firstly, capturing it from decaying materials prevents the direct release of methane that would otherwise have escaped into the atmosphere. This is important since methane is a greenhouse gas that is around 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide when measured over a 20-year period. When burned, biomethane only releases carbon that was already in circulation whereas natural gas, being a fossil fuel, releases carbon that otherwise would have remained locked underground.

Secondly, biomethane can be produced in far more locations than natural gas, meaning countries can avoid having to rely upon those with fossil fuel reserves.