Biogas, renewable energy

Biogas is a gas made up in average of 65% methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide 35% (CO2). Biogas is a renewable energy source resulting from biomass because the quantity of carbon dioxide (CO2) released during the combustion of biogas is exactly the same one as what was necessary to the plant to be formed. Thus, the carbon assessment of the biogas formed by anaerobic digestion is completely neutral in CO2. On the other hand, fossil energies combustion like oil or natural gas involves an additional carbon release in the atmosphere since rejected carbon was enclosed since millenia in the geological layers of the Earth.

According to its composition, biogas presents characteristics which it is interesting to compare with natural gas and propane. Biogas is a gas lighter than air, it produces twice less calories by combustion with equal volume than natural gas. The biogas resources in the world, according to a study of the ADEME amount to 750 Mtep/year if all waste were treated through anaerobic digestion - a figure to which it is necessary to add the agricultural waste ( 1000 Mtep/year). Overall, biogas represents a layer comparable with the fossil natural gas worldwide consumption - 1800 Mtep/year