Can gas from food scraps fill an energy void?
Biogas is typically produced using a process called anaerobic digestion - where organic matter is broken down with an absence of oxygen inside a sealed structure.
New Zealand's first biogas facility to pump into the national gas pipeline opened in Reporoa in 2022 and can meet the demand for gas from about 7000 homes.
Proponents of biogas say it has the potential to help fill the shortfall from declining gas fields in this country.
But its current rate of uptake means the country is well behind that as a possibility.
The Government canned a proposal to mandate food scrap collection for all councils, which critics have said has stymied investment in biogas generation.
The head of the World Biogas Association, Charlotte Morton is in New Zealand as a keynote speaker at the Biogas Forum here.
A truck delivering another load of food waste to Ecogas in Papakura
Photo:
Zane Edwardson
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