New Process Will Produce RNG From Crop and Forestry Residues in Canada

Daniela Castillo Monagas

Dr Ajay Dalai (PhD), a researcher from the University of Saskatchewan (USask) is working with Tidewater Renewables to develop an innovative integrated process to produce RNG (renewable natural gas) from crop and forestry residues.

Saskatchewan’s agriculture and lumber industries alone produce approximately 24 million tonnes of biomass residues annually, since the province’s north boreal forest is larger than Germany, and the south makes up nearly half of Canada’s cropland.

Dr. Dalai’s and Tidewater Renewables’s goal is to promote Canada’s transition to a low-carbon economy by replacing non-RNG with biomethane to decarbonise the heating and power production sectors.

Dr Dalai’s process hopes to make cost-efficient biomethane from the vast volume of agricultural biomass available. Even as some of the biomass is used as animal feed and bedding, a lot is left in fields or taken to landfills, where it rots and releases methane, which can be nearly 25 times more harmful than CO2.

According to Dr. Dalai, “Monetising the carbon in biomass to produce renewable biomethane locally instead of allowing methane to contribute to climate changes is “sensible”, especially as it also reduces the reliance on non-RNG.

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“The idea is to digest the residues from agricultural biomass to make methane. We collect the methane, take the solid and gasify it to get more methane. Then, we take the by-product gases from the gas we make and convert that into additional methane.”

This biomethane is identical to the methane in natural gas and can be directly injected into existing natural gas networks.

The process Dr Dalai is developing is a novel integrated process that uses anaerobic digestion and thermochemical gasification methods to produce RNG. Tidewater will grant $150,000 (€106,000) annually for three years for the project. Dalai is also applying for an Alliance grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, which would provide $300,000 (€212,000) annually for the project if he is awarded funding.

According to Dr Dalai, sharing the research findings with other renewable energy companies in Canada to set up cost-effective biomethane facilities will help them reduce carbon emissions while creating opportunities for farmers, engineers, and researchers.

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