why biogas?

Question

uses of bigas, applicability. cost effectivity

Answer 1

'Biogas' is pretty much just the gases that are normally produced when living stuff decomposes in an environment without a lot of oxygen. It naturally bubbles up out of swamps and also out of most of our landfills; some groups have tried to take the process a step further by encouraging its production from pretty much any time of biological waste there is.

The differences between 'biogas' and 'natural gas' are largely cosmetic - both are mostly methane with some other flammable stuff thrown in. As such, they have pretty much all the same risks and costs as far is distribution and use. A primarily limitation of both right now is that it is prohibitively expensive to transport other than through long pipelines in the gas state. Still, because biogas is far easier to produce and access, it could be argued that instead of shipping the gas, smaller regional plants might be constructed to produce the stuff and make long pipelines completely unnecessary.

It has also been pointed out that biogas will be produced to some extent whether we collect it or not. Right now waste is often incinerated or buried, essentially just destroying or discarding a potential fuel source. And since methane is a greenhouse gas many times more effective at retaining heat than carbon dioxide, it arguably behooves us to burn it all instead of just letting it disperse into the atmosphere naturally.