World Biogas Association Newsletter - November-December 2022

Chief Executive's message

After an extremely intense week at COP27, I am leaving Sharm el Sheikh feeling cautiously optimistic about our mission to facilitate the rapid deployment of biogas worldwide to recycle all the readily available methane-emitting organic wastes.

While the successes of the COPs are often hard to quantify, the climate summits are extremely important for an organisation such as ours. In a week, we were able to meet government delegations from Brazil, India, Canada and the UK, the Head of the CCAC, the President of the Environmental Defense Fund, high level representatives from IEA, Global Methane Hub, FAO, IFAD, GCF, CATF, IGSD, IFA, GAIA, CCAP and many other organisations whose work covers methane mitigation, and therefore have an interest in biogas. I also participated in two CCAC Ministerial meetings with the environment ministers of the signatory countries of the Global Methane Pledge. 150 countries have now joined the Pledge to reduce global methane emissions by 30% against 2020 levels by 2030, and it was a spine-tingling moment to hear history being made as China’s Special Climate Envoy and Head of Delegation, Xie Zhenhua, joined the meeting chaired by John Kerry to announce that, whilst China was not yet signing up to the GMP,?they had a draft Methane Action Plan and it was now going through China’s legislative approvals process.

We also hosted our own event in the Blue Zone, which focused on tackling methane emissions from the waste sector by diverting municipal solid waste from landfills to be recycled into biogas or compost. One of my key messages was that our sector alone can deliver 50% of the Global Methane Pledge, as well as a third of today’s fossil natural gas consumption, thus helping to mitigate the world’s energy and food security crises, at the same time as stimulating global economies.

The growing recognition of biogas’ potential both in the context of the Pledge and the ongoing energy crisis was clear in this COP. Organisations from all over the world visited our stand to join our association, collaborate and find out more about the technology. Indeed, BP’s latest energy outlook report forecasts a 25-fold increase in biogas by 2050, while the latest annual energy report from the International Energy Agency predicts that the sector will grow between 7 and 11.5 times between now and 2050. That’s an annual growth rate of 13 per cent to 2030 and 11 per cent to 2050, the second highest growing sector after hydrogen.

The rapid scaling of the industry to deliver the industry’s potential by 2030 – 7 years’ time - will require significant standardisation and the removal of key barriers, which our #MakeBiogasHappen programme is focussing on. Further information on this will be circulated shortly.

In the meantime, the proposed amendments to the GHG Protocol that would impact the use of biomethane certificates remain a serious concern. Before travelling to Egypt, WBA and its members met David Rich, Deputy Director of the GHG Protocol, to discuss WRI’s concerns over the use of market-based mechanisms such as biomethane certificates. We were able to make further significant progress understanding those concerns at COP itself. We are continuing to work with those of our members who could be affected by the changes, and other organisations whose members are similarly affected, to build the case against the amendments – please get in touch if this affects your organisation to ensure our responses are aligned.

?Lastly for now, we hope to see many of you at the World Biogas Summit and Expo next year on 29th and 30th March in Birmingham, UK, where we will continue progressing the deployment of biogas in all regions of the world, and at new events in planning (watch this space!) – together we can #makebiogashappen.

Charlotte Morton OBE

Chief Executive, World Biogas Association

China starts to engage with the Global Methane Pledge

The thaw in relations between China and the US symbolised by the meeting between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping at the G20 had an immediate impact at COP27 in Egypt, where China’s leading climate change envoy unexpectedly engaged with the Global Methane Pledge. Reuters report that Xie Zhenhua held unofficial talks with John Kerry, the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, and also unexpectedly attended a meeting there to discuss the Global Methane Pledge.

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Biogas Market News Round-Up

by Andy Crofts

Presenting a global round-up of important developments in the biogas industry. Edited by Andy Crofts ([email protected]) it delivers a snapshot of industry growth with links to more detail attached.?

SEE MARKET NEWS ROUND-UP

An Eye on Methane: International Methane Emissions Observatory 2022 Report

IMEO has published his 2022 report. WBA is now part of the IMEO mirror-group to work on methane emissions mitigation from waste and agriculture.

IMEO is also widening its focus to include studies from other anthropogenic methane emissions. As much as 60 per cent of measures targeted at the waste sector have either negative or low cost and could reduce methane emissions from the sector by 30-40 million tons annually by 2030 if implemented (UNEP 2021). A large-scale landfill measurement campaign is in the planning stages and would serve as a method of intercomparison for area sources (ground-based and drone combined measurements versus aircraft mass balance) and IMEO’s first measurements of sources in the waste sector.

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Member Press Release

Anaergia wins European Biogas Association’s Biogas Groundbreaker Award for 2022

BURLINGTON, ONTARIO—November 1, 2022 –?Anaergia Inc. announced it has received the Biogas Groundbreaker Award for 2022 from the European Biogas Association. The award recognizes the Company’s growth and dedication to research activities as well as its ambition to accelerate biogas production at scale in Europe and across the world. The award was presented at a ceremony in Brussels, Belgium last week.

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Member Press Releases

Cenergy Solutions uses their ANG Technology to store biogas at a food waste biogas plant making RNG and electricity

Cenergy Solutions are using their adsorbed natural/biogas (ABG) tank trailer as buffer storage for micro turbines at a food waste biogas plant in California?

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Cenergy Solutions Converts 2022 Toyota Tundra to run on wellhead gas and biogas with low emissions

Cenergy Solutions converted a Toyota Tundra, 5.7-liter, 8-cylinder engine to run on either gasoline, CNG, wellhead gas or biogas, expanding the fuels that it can inexpensively run on with low emissions.

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WBA Working Groups – Update?

R&D working group is starting to work on improving understanding of the inter-play between biogases and hydrogen. Please contact?Charlotte MARCEL if you have any technical input to share.