As gas resources deplete, Pakistan needs biogas policy to utilise waste
The Express Tribune - Biogas is made by fermentation of bio-materials like food waste, agricultural residue, waste water, solid waste and excreta of human and animals among others.
Several biogas initiatives have been launched in the past, but they did not achieve the desirable impact and targets for a variety of reasons. Several initiatives continue to date with various levels of achievements.
Perhaps there is a need to have a biogas policy to integrate all the relevant sides, identifying gaps and promoting solutions and possibly announce some incentives.
Biogas has emerged from the ‘small is beautiful’ syndrome and is playing a significant role in renewable energy in Europe, where it is being utilised in electricity generation mostly in co-generation mode producing heat and power, and bio-methane production.
There are more than 12,000 large biogas plants operating in Europe, most of which are in Germany, Italy, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands and the UK.
In Italy and Sweden, bulk of the bio-methane goes to compressed natural gas (CNG) while in Germany, the Netherlands and Austria, bulk of the bio-methane goes to the normal gas grid. Raw biogas is converted into bio-methane after cleaning and enrichment.