You wouldn’t think it was possible to be motivated by maize, or besotted with bacteria, but that’s exactly what’s going on at Resonates HQ. Our new client Future Biogas is one of the UK’s leading producers of biomethane, which originates from energy crops broken down by helpful microbes. Not converted? Allow us to go on…
Biomethane is chemically the same as the natural gas that powers your heating and whistles out of your hob. But while natural gas is a fossil fuel, biomethane is sustainable and renewable. It results in very low carbon emissions, which makes it ideal for replacing natural gas in industries that would otherwise be hard to decarbonise. Typically, that means those with very hot processes, such as metal refineries or chemicals, but biomethane is also perfect for displacing fossil gas from backup power in data centres – we’ll come back to why this could be a particularly timely application.
People may have been producing biomethane for millennia – it’s said to have heated bathwater in Assyria as long ago as 900BC. Modern facilities break down plant material in an anaerobic digester, where bacteria helpfully turn it into methane, carbon dioxide (CO2), and an organic residue known as digestate. The nutrient-rich digestate is returned to the land, displacing carbon-intensive fertilisers and significantly reducing farming emissions.
When grown in a sustainable rotation with food and cover crops, energy feedstocks contribute to overall soil health and fertility, preventing run off, and improving crop yields. There’s no need to choose between using land for food or fuel, as it can do both. That’s a far cry from the industrial monoculture of woody crops for burning, which perpetuates the damage caused by intensive agriculture, and gives nothing back to the land.
Biogas produced by AD is captured and purified into biomethane by the removal of CO2. Because this carbon was initially sequestered by the growing plants, releasing it into the atmosphere doesn’t create emissions. That said, it’s much better to keep hold of it. Biogenic CO2 can be used in many industrial and food-production processes – for example to carbonate fizzy drinks – or even placed in permanent geological storage.
Carbon capture in biomethane production is being pioneered in the UK at Future Biogas’ Moor Bioenergy plant in Lincolnshire. Biomethane produced here actually results in a net removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – even allowing for the CO2 released when the biomethane itself is used. And because biomethane can be ‘sleeved’ through the gas network, forward-looking customers like AstraZeneca can purchase this gas to lower their Scope 1 emissions.
All of which brings us back to the data centre. Fuelled by the growth in AI, major data centre operators and their investors are desperate to add capacity. The UK is well-placed to cash in on this – indeed the government is actively encouraging it through its AI Growth Zone plan – but the reality on the ground is challenging. Data centres – particularly those powering AI – require huge amounts of power, yet UK grid connections remain massively oversubscribed, and many projects are at risk.
In this environment, there’s a risk that investment will go elsewhere and the UK will miss out on a major growth opportunity. Perhaps worse, data centres may still be built, but they’ll lean on fossil-fuelled backup generation to support their day-to-day operations. This is exactly where biomethane can help: it’s sustainable and renewable, has far lower emissions than natural gas, and is already a reliable and commercially available reality. That makes it the ideal fuel to decarbonise data centre backup power, and provide a truly low-carbon alternative to grid connections that may be a decade away.
We’re excited to be representing Future Biogas: it has a great product, that could both play a significant role in decarbonising the UK gas grid, and help support one of the world’s hottest growth markets. But we also love how the business works: in close partnership with local farmers, supporting best-practice farming, and improving the health and productivity of agricultural economies. That’s what sustainable biogas looks like – it’s our job to help communicate the reality.
