Stagecoach’s dual-fuel Optare bus
The London-based Anaerobic Digestion & Bioresources Association (ADBA) says that the contribution that biomethane can make to decarbonising transport and improving air quality around the world will be a central theme of UK AD & Biogas and World Biogas Expo taking place at the NEC in Birmingham next week (5-6 July).
“Anaerobic digestion is the easiest route for us to run buses which are almost carbon neutral, and I see that continuing to grow in the bus sector,” says John Bickerton, Head of Engineering and Innovation at Reading Buses.
Biomethane is a clean, green transport fuel that can be made by upgrading biogas produced through anaerobic digestion, a naturally occurring process that recycles organic material into valuable products. With policymakers and cities around the world looking to decarbonise transport and improve air quality, biomethane offers low-cost, renewable transport fuel that is particularly suitable for heavy goods vehicles, buses and tractors, for which electrification is not yet suitable. Using biomethane in vehicles delivers huge carbon savings and with the transport sector making up 14% of emissions worldwide, transport represents an area of huge potential growth for AD.
UK AD & Biogas and World Biogas Expo, now in its seventh year, will be showcasing all the products and services required to upgrade biogas to biomethane for use as a low-cost, low-carbon transport fuel, as well as the latest biomethane vehicles and refuelling equipment.
Looking ahead to the show, ADBA Chief Executive Charlotte Morton said: “Over the past year, use of biomethane as a transport fuel has shown strong growth, particularly with buses and HGVs in the logistics sector. As the meeting point and hub of both the UK and global AD industries, this year’s expanded UK AD & Biogas and World Biogas Expo 2017 is the perfect place for transport and supply chain professionals and experts to share ideas around how to source biomethane and upgrade your transport fleet to benefit from this low-carbon fuel.
David Newman, president of the World Biogas Association (WBA), added: The transport sector is currently fuelled 95% by expensive petroleum-based fossil fuels and accounted for 14% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in 2010. The use of crop and organic waste-derived biogas upgraded to biomethane as vehicular fuel completes the carbon cycle rather than adding further fossil-fuel sequestered carbon into the atmosphere.”
(Source: The Anaerobic Digestion & Bioresources Association)
