Fact
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Climate change
Climate change is one of the most important issues facing the world today. It is now generally accepted that the gradual increase in average global temperatures is due to higher levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane in the Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities.
Methane (CH4) occurs at lower concentrations than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but methane produces 21 times as much warming as carbon dioxide (CO2).
Government targets
The UK is the first country in the world to set legally binding ‘carbon budgets’ aiming to cut carbon emissions by 34% by 2020 and at least 80% by 2050.
The Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), an innovative scheme designed to help achieve these ambitious targets, will affect around 5,000 organisations in the UK including local authorities, water companies and supermarkets.
How anaerobic digestion helps
The burning of fossil fuels is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Greater use of technologies such as anaerobic digestion (AD) to produce renewable energy will dramatically reduce the UK's dependence on fossil fuels and thus its carbon emissions.
The methane-rich biogas produced by anaerobic digestion is captured for use in a combined heat and power (CHP) plants to produce electricity and heat. No methane is released to the atmosphere and carbon is saved through the displacement of energy from fossil fuels.
The residual material from the anaerobic digestion process, biofertiliser, can be used instead of fossil-fuel derived fertilisers, thus giving further carbon savings. According to the Committee on Climate Change, transport accounts for 24% of the UK's carbon emissions: the use of local AD plants reduces the need to transport waste and fertiliser over long distances.
Our technology director, Michael Chesshire, is a director of the Renewable Energy Association. He was a member of the Anaerobic Digestion Task Group formed to produce an Implementation Plan setting out practical measures to remove barriers to the greater uptake of anaerobic digestion. Its publication in 2009 coincided with the release of the government’s new Renewable Energy Strategy.
The Government announced its response to the above work in the form of a subsidy available to microgenerators of renewable energy known as The Feed In Tariff (FIT) programme. FIT’s were published in Feb 2010, and implemented in April 2010.
Anaerobic digestion is already attracting increasing attention from local authorities seeking to set up food waste collection schemes. A report for WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) by independent consultants, Eunomia, found that anaerobic digestion is the optimum method of dealing with food waste.†
Many retailers, food manufacturing companies and farmers also see anaerobic digestion as the solution to their waste problems and a demonstration of corporate social responsibility – and as a way of genuinely boosting their brand credentials.
Anaerobic digestion is supported by environmental campaign groups, including Friends of the Earth (FoE). A FoE briefing states that ‘anaerobic digestion provides an important opportunity to generate 100% renewable energy from biodegradable waste’.‡
Our commitment
We take an active part in promoting anaerobic digestion in the UK. We are a member of the Renewable Energy Association (REA) – the voice of the renewables industry in the UK. Our experts worked with REA and WRAP to develop a national specification, BSI PAS 110, for the processing and production of anaerobic digestate. We also support global initiatives such as Methane to Markets.
† Managing biowastes from households in the UK: Applying life-cycle thinking in the framework of cost-benefit analysis. A final report for WRAP, May 2007, produced by Eunomia Research & Consulting Ltd, Bristol.
