The word biogas and biofuel reminds me of the movie “Back to the Future” where two of the main characters are Christopher Lloyd as Dr. Emmett Brown and Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly. At the end of the movie, Dr. Brown visited McFly with his biogas powered time-machine car. The slightly mad scientist traveled from the future and upon arrival to the time of McFly, he scavenges some organic garbage from the trashcan and loads it to his biogas generator that looks more as house blender than a power generator. It’s a great sci-fi movie in 1985, but this science fiction will be into large scale implementation.

In the early stage of clean power generation, the world suffers when about 30 million tons of corn converted into fuel. This conversion of staple food sky-rocketed the price, not only that of corn but also of beef, pork, chicken, eggs, milk and cheese from animals that consume corn, as well as other agricultural crops when vast hectares of land long used for other crops were converted to corn plantation. Today, a biogas plant is now in operation, not yet in large scale but for the purpose of investigation of sustainable energy generation from the waste, bi-product and sub-products from the food industry. Large scale production of biofuel was long successful but large scale generation of biogas from wastes is at its early stage.

About the Biogas

Methane is the primary component of the biogas; it is abundant in our wastes. Sludge in septic tanks, wastes from food industries, animal and human wastes, agricultural and aquatic wastes, are all high in methane. The process of making biogas is by anaerobic digestion, in which volume of waste is significantly reduced as microorganisms breakdown biodegradable materials. This process occurs naturally in the absence of oxygen and can be done safely in industrial processes. It will produce methane and carbon dioxide gases, but combined with fermentation process, hydrogen and methane can be obtained from the wastes.

Suggested Readings:

• The Modern Importance of Biogas
• How Anaerobic Digestion (Methane Recovery) Works
• New biogas plant works off food industry waste
• Search for Biogas at International Society of Automation (ISA)
• What is Anaerobic Digestion?
• PHILIPPINES: Power plant captures methane from a garbage landfill to produce electricity and sell carbon credits

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