Tapping of China’s biogas industry and its perspective

“Industrial biogas” refers to those gases that are scaled producing, then scrubbing and upgrading, and can be thus easily and economically transported through pipeline or pressured tank, so as to substrate for natural gas and liquidized petroleum gas. It differs from conventional biogas based on farmer’s household. Resources of natural gas are considerable inadequate in China, while the huge potential of tapping biogas has not yet been widely recognized. This paper analyzed the successful practices of some EU countries, and proposed that China’s guideline of organic waste/wastewater treatment should be reconsidered so that it could not only serve to environmental protection, but also gain some economic benefits, i.e., to produce commodity clean energy. Potentials of several traditional feedstock of biogas were inventoried, and approach for phasing out bottlenecks of technologies and policy were discussed. It is concluded that in the medium term China has a capacity of producing biogas equaling to 90 billion cubic meters annually, and biogas industry will be a promising part of bioenergy/biomaterial industry.