Green gas supply. What do we think?

Fire · November 2018

Dear Hive Mind,

I see that companies like Green Energy are starting to offer "100 % renewable gas" sources in the UK. This is coming from anaerobic digesters, using the gases from pig slurry. This video suggests they are using manures rather than virgin feedstock. Does it seems a kosher way of creating bio-fuel, that isn't destroying viable grains? (Not literally kosher, obvs).

I'd like to swap supply to 100% "green gas" (renewable, frack-free) but these things rarely do what they say on the tin.

Thoughts welcome. Thanks

KT53 · November 2018

It's not a new idea. Using animal manure to produce fuel from the methane has been going on for a long time.

Lyn · November 2018

Years ago, in backwater Devon there was a chicken farm who ran their machinery on the dung. As KT says it’s not new idea, probably expensive on a big scale and lots of people won’t profit by it.
mind you, I didn’t half pong!

fidgetbones · November 2018

All the companies have to use a certain amount of renewables. Someone tried to sell me more expensive "green energy". As I said, how do they separate it out from the non green that next door gets? It all comes down the same pipes or wires.

wild edges · November 2018

Green gas isn't a new idea but feeding it into the mains gas grid is fairly new. It makes more sense to me for farms to have micro generation plants rather than add transport miles to the equation but it sounds like this has been considered by the suppliers.

The idea is that they feed a certain amount of green gas into the grid and then charge specific customers for that amount of gas. You don't actually get the green gas but you're paying for it at the stage it gets added to the grid. Same as green electric. My supplier provides 100% wind powered electric but the lights don't go off on calm days. I like to think of it as an investement in green technology but in reality it's probably just another tax on idiots.

Anything that reduces the need for fracking though right?...

raisingirl · November 2018

If everyone signed up to green tariffs then (in theory) all the energy companies would be contractually, legally, obliged to provide 100% renewable sources, so I don't think it's a tax on idiots WE. It is the only means you have as an individual consumer to oblige the energy companies to take renewables seriously.

On the other hand

Good progress has been made to 'decarbonise' the National Grid for electricity, the gas grid is falling behind. The sums that developers do to decide what sort of heating they should put in to new houses are underpinned by the % of renewables that, on average, go in to the grids. We're reaching a point now where it makes more sense to use electric heating than gas. That gives the gas companies a problem. Therefore they need to take steps to decarbonise the gas supply or they will find no new houses have a gas supply and their market will begin to diminish. If you buy green gas, you are subsidising the improvements they have to make to stay in business.

But then again, you may also be accelerating the change. So it's not wasted.

The fact it's not a new idea isn't really the point. Tom Good had a generator in his basement that ran on methane, didn't he? It's the industrialisation and application of the technology that matters, not the simple fact of it.

wild edges · November 2018

Of course another great step is to reduce your gas demand. If everyone stopped cooking with gas it would would be a huge step forward.

Lyn · November 2018

No gas on here where I live, and probably won’t ever be.

Fire · November 2018

"I like to think of it as an investment in green technology but in reality it's probably just another tax on idiots. "

WE, why do you say that?

The deep green vote would be to use no gas at all? In a London terrace house, what would be the alternative? (Serious question).

And, yes, to others above, this is the first time that I have seen a national supplier offer 100% renewable gas. Green companies so far seem to have offset their gas carbon.

Palaisglide · November 2018

My old Dad would say "if it sounds too good to be true then it is" Green energy is here to stay as it makes money for large companies, cheap green energy is a myth.
All energy has a cost, here in the North East of England we see the results of Government Schemes to promote them and then the demise as the hand outs dry up.
Experiments with sewage waste began in America in 1913, my own experience was with ICI Billingham when my Heavy Fabrication Works were involved with deep shaft treatment.
Shafts up to 150 Ms were dug and lined then filled with slurry, high pressure Oxygen pumped in to speed up the changes required and then separated at the surface. You still needed holding tanks and we used our own Oxygen plants but it was a costly system although five times faster than normal flat bed systems, it did save on the amount of land needed for the plant. It is still running along with two others ICI had in other parts of the Country.
We had green fuel Power Plants built to use locally grown wood chips? it turned out the wood was from Canada felled transported to chipping plants then by ship to Middlesbrough, there now seems to be a worry about the Cancer problems that could be caused by the burning.
We once looked out on a pristine North Sea view now it is miles of wind turbines, good you say free power?? no those slow moving blades need a massive engineered gear box to get the speed up to generate the electricity, gear boxes full of oil that break down set on fire and can only be of use when the wind speed is correct, not too often.
China and India are building coal fired generating stations at a rapid rate with no regard as to what the world thinks, our puny and costly efforts are not going to make a difference. We sit on two hundred years of coal that could be brought to the surface much more efficiently than used to be the case and the money wasted by Governments could be used to clean the fumes from the burning and make use of the gas produced.
A thought, what happened to all the slurry from sewage?? Have you looked in your Compost bags lately?
Frank.

wild edges · November 2018

Fire said:

"I like to think of it as an investment in green technology but in reality it's probably just another tax on idiots. "

WE, why do you say that?

I'm just being flippant really. A few years ago electricity from renewable sources was being sold through the grid at premium prices. You only signed up to a green supplier if you had money to spare as it was never the cheapest tarif to be on or if your middle-class guilt was really keeping you awake at night. This was also when subsidy payments for green energy were higher and were being paid out of everyone's bills. So if you went for a green supplier you paid extra for the green electricity plus paying money on top to cover the subsidies which in effect meant you were paying twice for the same product. All the while your rich neighbour covered his roof in solar panels, got paid (by you) just to have them and sold his electric output to the grid and got richer while your bills went up. In the long run though it should bring everyone's bills down as the initial investments in the hardware and development have been made and now there is less input costs for the suppliers.

Investing in green tech is a good thing but remember when the UK government invested our money heavily in CFL bulbs and it cost millions, saved very little in terms of our energy bill cost and then LEDs made CFLs redundant a few years later?

Going gas free is a big investment but it is getting cheaper. Heat recovery ventilation systems are becoming popular now and solar thermal panels can really reduce your consuption of gas for heating and hot. It's still a debate though whether solar PV is better for heating water than solar thermal and PV can be more versatile in the warmer months.

Green gas supply. What do we think?

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