What Is Biogas? Benefits and Examples You Must Know

To fulfill energy needs, we often use non-renewable energy, like fossil energy. Though, this type of energy is less environmentally friendly and hard to renew. That’s why we must use renewable energy.

One of the alternative energies you can use around you is biogas. Biogas is an energy source coming from the fermentation of organic material. To learn more about biogas, read this article until the end!

What Is Biogas?

Biogas is a natural gas coming from the fermentation or decomposition process of organic materials by anaerobic microorganisms (they do not use oxygen). Biogas commonly contains carbon dioxide, oxygen, carbon monoxide, methane, nitrogen, sulfide, and vapor.

Biogas is colorless and odorless. This energy source has a high calorific value of 6,400–6,600 kcal/m3. Biogas is a fuel obtained from organic waste, such as organic food waste, agricultural waste, crop residues, animal manure, and other organic waste materials.

Raw biogas can be directly ignited for heating, but to replace fossil fuels, it must be reprocessed to remove carbon dioxide, nitrogen, volatile organic compounds, siloxane, and hydrogen sulfide. As a result, biogas can contain 90% methane. Moreover, biogas channeled through natural gas pipelines can contain 96–98% methane.

After being reprocessed, biogas can be used as a fuel for machines, cooking, igniting a heater, and running power plants.

Statista revealed that the global installation capacity for biogas reached 21.4 gigawatts in 2023. The use of biogas should continue to be promoted to reduce the reliance on non-renewable energy.

How to Make Biogas

Biogas is an alternative energy source processed using anaerobic bacteria, which can decompose organic material without oxygen. Anaerobic bacteria occur naturally and produce gas during the process. In detail, here is the process of making biogas you must know:

Collect organic materials, such as food waste, animal manure, domestic organic waste, wood, and many more.
Grind the materials to allow microorganisms to decompose them.
Put the ground materials in a vacuum tank to begin the anaerobic fermentation. It will produce carbon dioxide and methane.
The gas produced will be collected in a leak-proof tank. In addition, methane is also separated from other gases, such as nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and others.
Biogas is ready to use or repurposed.

Benefits of Biogas

Biogas has several benefits for humans and the environment, such as:

1. Reducing Carbon Emissions

The first benefit is that biogas can reduce carbon emissions, which can worsen the negative impact of climate change. Biogas also decreases global warming caused by fossil energy.

2. Becoming Renewable Energy Source

Biogas is from organic waste, either naturally or from human organic activity. The materials can be produced faster than fossil energy, making it more sustainable.

3. Environmentally Friendly

Biogas is an environmentally friendly energy source because it does not cause soil and air pollution. As a result, the negative impacts of global warming can be reduced.

4. Reducing Organic Waste

Did you know? According to SIPSN, the organic waste generation in Indonesia reaches 34.2 million tons annually. Therefore, biogas is here as one of the organic waste treatments decreasing the generation.

5. Lowering the Reliance on Fossil Energy

By using biogas on a daily basis, you can lower the reliance on fossil energy, which is non-renewable. Utilizing biogas can be the initial contribution to environmental preservation.

6. Supporting Sustainable Agriculture

Farmers can use biogas to operate farm machinery. Not only that, but the agricultural waste can also be processed back into biogas, creating a sustainable cycle.

Although biogas has benefits for humans and can support environmental sustainability, you must pay attention to some disadvantages of biogas to properly use it, such as less efficient processing technology, causing unpleasant odors, less flexible application, and the process depends on the weather.

Examples of Biogas on Daily Life

Biogas is very close to our lives. Here are some examples of biogas implementations in various sectors:

1. Fossil Fuel

Biogas is frequently used as an alternative energy to fossil fuels from natural gas and crude oil. Biogas is more eco-friendly, sustainable, and renewable. It can also reduce the production of greenhouse gas emissions.

2. Electricity Source

Biogas can be used to run power generators and produce electricity for various scales, from household to wider scale. This is good news for rural areas that are unreachable by conventional electricity.

3. Waste Management

In addition to generating electricity for households, biogas can also produce electricity to run waste management machines, especially in factories and companies.

4. Fuels for Cooking and Heating

One of the most common applications of biogas is as a cooking and heating fuel. Biogas is considered efficient to power stoves and space heaters without causing air pollution.

Furthermore, biogas can be used to power stall heaters and make animals stay more comfortable. Then, livestock manure can be processed into biogas.

That is the information about biogas you can learn. Biogas is one of the renewable energy sources that is eco-friendly and sustainable. Biogas can be an initial step towards environmental conservation and maintaining energy sources for future generations.

Aside from using biogas, you can also use other renewable energies, like solar panels. However, to install it, make sure to entrust it to Krakatau Chandra Energi (KCE).

Krakatau Chandra Energi is a subsidiary of Chandra Asri Group provisioning electricity services, electric power, and solar panels to support the company’s operations in an eco-friendly manner.

So, make sure to always trust leading renewable energy providers like KCE for all your energy needs!