Bioenergy: Opportunities and challenges of harnessing waste to reduce GHGs

This past Thursday evening I had the opportunity to attend a panel discussion on “Bioenergy: Opportunities and challenges of harnessing waste to reduce GHGs”. It took place in Vancouver, organized by the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS). The panel was moderated by Ged McLean, PICS Associate Director, and panelists included Jennifer Davison, Senior Policy Analyst for Ministry of Energy, Mines, and Petroleum Resources, Alex Boston, Executive Direction of Renewable Cities, Brent Sauder, Executive Chair Person of the BC Bioenergy Network, and Chris Bush, Founder and President of Catalyst Agri-Innovations Society. During this presentation I learned about renewable natural gas (RNG) production potential in BC including both RNG feedstock and RNG technology.

The panelists discussed different ways of generating bio fuel, however, one proposal that was new to me was the zero-waste agriculture solution proposed by Chris Bush. Chris currently has a biogas plant in Abbotsford where he mixes animal manure into “poop soup” and cooks it to get biogas energy and fertilizer. The energy is used by households in surrounding areas, and the fertilizer is used to grow duckweed (aquatic grass), which consumes a large amount of CO₂. The duckweed is then fermented to separate the protein from the sugars. The protein is used as animal feed, and the sugars are used by the chemical industry. Chris mentioned that the proteins from duckweed could be used to make food for humans instead of just animal feed, however, at the moment human food made from manure isn’t very marketable. I think that it is a really neat system, recycling animal manure back into animal food, while simultaneously preventing methane emissions from escaping into the atmosphere and harnessing these emissions for energy. I am eager to see if this idea takes off large scale in the next few years.

I liked the format of the panel. Each presenter had around 8 minutes to present their ideas, after which Ged asked questions that any panelist could respond to. This enabled the panelist who was best suited to answer the question respond, and enabled panelists to build off each other’s answers, bringing forth their own perspective. There was also an appropriate amount of time that was left at the end for the audience members to ask questions. Panelists responded well to questions, each showing their expertise. However, one panelist struggled to give the actual amount of greenhouse gas reduction that would occur from their proposed solution. It would have been helpful to be able to quantify the benefits in the amount of CO₂ reduced.

Research shows that eating meat has a much larger carbon footprint compared to eating a plant-based diet. If I were to ask a question, I would ask Chris Bush how capturing animal manure in a biogas plant changes the environmental impact of eating meat.