“The EU could produce enough biomethane to replace Russian gas”

Dince the day the Russians invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the European Union (EU) has paid Russia more than 28 billion euros in exchange for its gas (Financing Putin’s war: Fossil fuel imports from Russia during the invasion of Ukraine, Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, CREA). At the same time, the EU is looking for other sources of supply to replace the 155 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas imported from Russia. However, the EU could produce locally, according to various methods, enough biomethane to replace this imported gas.

Remember that biogas is produced by the decomposition, in the absence of oxygen, of organic matter (manure, human sewage, agricultural residues, etc.). Biogas consists of 50-70% methane and 30-50% CO₂. By removing this and the traces of hydrogen sulfide (which produces the nasty “rotten egg” smell) in an easy and inexpensive process, you are left with pure methane, the perfect substitute for natural gas.

Biomethane produced in large production centers often costs a third less than the now high price of natural gas. In smaller production centers, the costs are more comparable to Russian gas, but at least the money stays there, it doesn’t go to Russia! Biomethane flows through the same pipelines and storage facilities as natural gas.

A way to store energy

So why not substitute it for Russian gas? Simply because we produce very little of it, about 3 bcm, as stated by the European Biogas Association (EBA). This same source also indicated that by using its own waste, the EU could produce 35 bcm of biomethane by 2030, or more than 20% of Russian gas imports.

This estimate was retained in the official strategy of the European Commission, REPowerEU. Installing the infrastructure for the production of this biomethane would cost, according to the EBA, some 80 billion euros. That sounds like a lot, but it’s not much compared to the 28 billion paid to the Russian invaders in just four months!

Additionally, the CO₂ extracted from the original biogas can be upgraded to obtain more biomethane: combined with hydrogen in a reactor, in the presence of a nickel catalyst, it comes out in the form of pure methane gas. This would be a means of storing energy to compensate for intermittent production losses from wind and photovoltaic farms.

The EU must act decisively

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