Canadian Biogas Association

Biogas is a renewable source of methane gas, created when organic matter breaks down in an oxygen-free environment. This biological process is referred to as Anaerobic Digestion (AD). The main component of biogas is methane, also the key component of natural gas. 

What is Renewable Natural Gas (RNG)?

Biogas can be upgraded to Renewable Natural Gas (RNG), which is carbon neutral and interchangeable with conventional natural gas.

What is digestate?

Digestate is the product that comes from the anaerobic digestion of organic material and is a nutrient-rich slurry that can be used as a soil amendment to recycle nutrients.

Where does biogas come from?

Biogas is created from organic materials or carbon sources found in:

• Agriculture – livestock manure, and crop residue
• Source-separated organic materials from residences and commercial businesses
• Landfills
• Biosolids from wastewater treatment

How is biogas used?

The Canadian Biogas Association is the collective voice of the biogas industry. Since 2008, our membership has grown to over 100, including farmers, municipalities, technology developers, consultants, finance and insurance firms, and other affiliate representatives – all with a focus on building the biogas sector in Canada.

Mission

The Canadian Biogas Association is the collective voice of the biogas industry.

Vision

The Canadian Biogas Association will develop the biogas industry to its fullest potential through capturing and processing organic materials to maximize the utility and value inherent within that material.

Role and Mandate

The Canadian Biogas Association is involved in:

• guiding policy and regulatory developments related to organic materials diversion, climate change, nutrient management, and renewable energy;
• building industry knowledge through exchange of information;
• creating knowledge networks among the sector;
• supporting valuable research;
• offering guidance and assistance to members on a wide range of renewable energy issues;
• promoting biogas opportunities to develop biogas to its full potential;
• organizing outreach events to raise awareness and educate the public to the multiple benefits of biogas.

Who We Are

The Canadian Biogas Association is the collective voice of the biogas industry. Since 2008, our membership has grown to over 100, including farmers, municipalities, technology developers, consultants, finance and insurance firms, and other affiliate representatives – all with a focus on building the biogas sector in Canada.

What We Do

The Canadian Biogas Association serves its members by way of promoting biogas opportunities, shaping policy that impacts biogas, providing resources, and offering technical expertise to address challenges in development.

How We Work

Biogas requires a lot of expertise, whether it is in project development; technical design; financial and legal support; policy and program development and understanding, or; operations and management of systems. We work as a team with input provided by members to Directors and Staff. Committees are established that align with priority policy areas.

Learn how you can benefit from joining as a member if you work in:

• Agriculture
• Technology
• Utility
• Municipality
• Learning Institutions

A biogas project can be highly specialized, using one or more carbon sources, or designed as an integrated, multi-purpose system accepting and processing multiple materials for a range of energy applications. Biogas produces renewable heat, electricity, and pipeline quality gas that can be stored in the pipeline and used for transportation, household heating or industrial, commercial and institutional processes. Biogas provides a closed loop opportunity for multiple businesses, extracting energy while recycling valuable nutrients. 

Biogas Benefits

Biogas offers Canadians a solution to helping protect our environment and meet ambitious climate change commitments. All of these critical functions – generating renewable energy, reducing solid wastes, managing nutrients, reducing GHGs and mitigating pollution risks – can be realized from a biogas facility in an economically sound and sustainable manner.

GHG Emission Reduction

The capturing and utilization of biogas is a powerful tool for reducing GHGs that are the principle cause of human-induced climate change. GHGs are reduced in two ways: first, the biogas produced is a source of renewable energy that can replace fossil fuels. Second, the capturing of biogas reduces methane, a very potent greenhouse gas that would otherwise be free to escape into the atmosphere. Biogas has the potential to reduce GHG emissions by 37.5 Mt CO2e, or 10% of the national target.

Methane Abatement

Biogas reduces two critically important greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). Carbon dioxide emissions are reduced when biogas replaces fossil fuel use (i.e., coal, diesel or natural gas). This can be in the form of direct displacement in the pipeline by injecting RNG into the natural gas supply, or in transportation by replacing diesel with RNG. In addition to displacement, the biogas process is able to capture upstream methane emissions and convert it to renewable energy. Methane abatement strategies are critically important in agriculture for manure management, as well as at municipal landfills that flare their captured gas. There are multiple ways in which biogas can reduce methane emissions or displace other higher carbon intensive fuels with a lower-carbon solution.

Resource Recovery

Biogas offers a solution to waste management that ensures valuable organic material is not sent to landfill. The benefits resulting from diversion of organic materials, include the following:

• Less food waste going to disposal means fewer GHG emissions associated with growing, manufacturing, transporting, and disposing of food;
• Diverting organics from disposal avoids potential methane emissions from landfills;
• Using the biogas produced from organic wastes as a source of energy reduces the need for fossil fuel energy sources, such as oil and natural gas;
• Digestate (the product that comes from the anaerobic digestion of organic material) returns organic matter to the soil.
• Digestate utilization reduces the extraction of peat, an important sink for CO2.

An additional societal and political benefit of organic material diversion includes preserving landfill space for “real” waste. For biogas system operators, these materials are essential for fueling their biogas systems and producing clean, green energy.

Environmental Protection

Biogas offers important environmental benefits and improvements to our air and water sources. As materials such as animal manures or food wastes are processed in biogas systems, the pathogens are significantly reduced, and nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous are made more available to plants.  Biogas removes odour-causing compounds, specifically methane, and enables greater environmental stewardship and neighbourly relations in communities.