Anaerobic digestion, or AD for short, has many advantages.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions: converting our organic waste into energy rather than putting it into landfill reduces both the amount of land we set aside to contain our waste and the amount of methane from decomposing waste that is put into the atmosphere. Methane's contribution to global warming is more than 20 times that of carbon dioxide.
Reducing our use of fossil fuels: the energy and fertilizer generated through AD reduces the amount of these that we would otherwise need to generate from fossil fuels. Making fertilizer from fossil fuels, for example, is a very energy-intensive process and the world is running out of phosphates so it is important to make the most of what we have.
Energy security: the amount of gas that can be produced from AD is significant and will reduce our reliance on gas imported from countries such as Russia. We already import over 50% of our gas from overseas and this is expected to increase to over 80% in the next few years. This is one of the reasons why gas prices have been increasing in the last few years. Experts estimate that we can get as much as 20% of our domestic gas requirements by converting our waste using AD into biogas and putting this into the National Grid.
Anaerobic digestion is a win win solution for all of us. It creates valuable energy and fertilizer from our waste, reducing our reliance on energy from overseas and keeping gas prices down. At the same time it minimises our impact on the environment by reducing our climate change emissions and consumption of energy from fossil fuels.