Stepping into a low carbon world

Launching the Lincolnshire Biomethane for Road Transport Action Plan

Lincolnshire County Council has begun work on the development of a viable market place for biomethane as a road fuel with the publication of the findings of a study on a low carbon transport by Mouchel and the findings of a stakeholder workshop held at the EPIC Centre earlier this year.

The action plan’s Executive Summary included the following conclusions:

• Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from transport are significant in Lincolnshire, representing 37% of all carbon emissions;
• Whilst HGV’s and buses are essential to a thriving county there is a need to reduce the county’s carbon footprint;
• Dual fuelled and gas vehicles offer a minimal risk stepping stone towards a low carbon transport future (there are an estimated 10 million gas powered vehicles in use across the world based around well established technologies)
• The use of biogas as a vehicle fuel offers significant commercial and environmental benefits:
1. It can provide cost benefits over the use of fossil transport fuels
through reduced fuel costs and fiscal incentives;
2. It is a more efficient way of reducing CO2 emissions than using it
to generate electricity;
3. It achieves significant air quality improvements including
particulate and noise reduction;
• There are significant resources in Lincolnshire that could act as feedstocks for the production of biogas from anaerobic digestion
• Initial analysis suggests that the conversion to biomethane of all 1,705 vehicles surveyed during the high level analysis would save 168,156 tonnes CO2 / annum – over 9% of the current transport emissions in the County;
• With the recent introduction and adjustment of fiscal incentives, there are now viable business models for the generation of biogas for fuel production and use;
• There are cost savings and benefits to public and private sector fleet operators and to fuel producers for producing biogas, converting it to biomethane and utilising it as a vehicle fuel.

As a result of this work a fleet of biomethane powered buses is being established and will be under commercial evaluation on the roads of Lincolnshire during 2010 and a fuelling station will be opening shortly in Lincoln.

Whilst the fuel for this project will come from a landfill collection system discussions are already underway with interested parties within Lincolnshire to expand this to supplies from Anaerobic Digestion facilities. The potential for further filling station facilities elsewhere in the county is being studied.

Watch this space for updates!
 

Is Bio-methane a potential low carbon road fuel for Lincolnshire?

How long will it be before we see a scene like this in Lincolnshire?

On the 19th of May a meeting at the EPIC Centre began the first stages of the development of an action plan for bio-methane as a viable low carbon road fuel for Lincolnshire.

The meeting opened with a presentation on Lincolnshire County Council's objective to significantly reduce its carbon footprint through the use of bio-methane in its own vehicles and those of its transport contractors. Alongside this were the first results of a study showing the potential for Lincolnshire to produce bio-methane and the location of some of the potential user fleets.

The meeting heard from the practitioners in the field of generating bio-methane by anaerobic digestion of food and agricultural byproducts and how the resulting gas can be handled and used within diesel engines.

The next steps will be the production of an action plan to set up a supply infrastructure and to put the first demonstartion vehicles onto Lincolnshire's roads. Watch this space for further developments.

The presentations are provided as pdf's below.

Biomethane as a Road Fuel for Lincolnshire - presentations from 19th May 2009