Biomethane coming to the French natural gas network
Findings of a study of health and environmental risks from the injection of biomethane fuel into the natural gas distribution network, requested from the French Agency for Health and Safety in the Environment and Workplace (AFSSET) in September 2006, have now been released. As was indicated by BioGasMax in Dec 2007 (see NGV Global article), its conclusions are “unequivocally favourable when biogas is produced from methanisation of waste or from storage of non-dangerous waste.” Furthermore, AFSSET states (translated), “The agency considers that there is no specific health risk associated with the injection into the network of certain types of cleaned biogas, compared to natural gas.”
BioGazMax reports that the injection of biomethane into the network, as well as a fiscal approach which favours the principle of ‘green gas’, will now allow the field of biomethane fuel to make progress under much better conditions.
While natural gas as a fuel is already considered to be safe, efficient and less polluting than petrol or diesel, French support for the field of biomethane fuel has required demonstrable outcomes, as provided by a major biogas undertaking in Lille (Metropolitan Urban Community, LMCU). Here, the methanisation of urban organic waste has meant that the biomethane obtained has been used as a fuel in the city’s buses and domestic waste disposal vehicles. This approach has been legitimised environmentally by a study of the life cycle of the methods of developing biogas, commissioned in September 2007 by ADEME and GDF (see NGV Global article Oct 2007). To download the study’s conclusions (French only), click here.
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