Can biogas be the equivalent for natural gas in Egypt?
Yes and no; biogas is a mixture of methane gas and carbon dioxide, methane gas is almost equivalent to natural gas, carbon dioxide is an inert gas, it has no calorific value. Therefore, carbon dioxide will decrease the calorific value of biogas. But, if we filter biogas by removing out carbon dioxide and some of the other trace elements, then biogas will be clean. Unfortunately, the technology used to clean it is not economically promoted in Egypt yet, although we have more than 743 biogas units distributed all over the country. Right now, the number of biogas units operating is 5-10 only. Why? The reason behind it is that promoting biogas in Egypt started in the 1980s as a biogas unit from animal manure, which is always considered a valuable waste for farmers used in land farming and fertilization. Thus, the concept of biogas should be expanded to include any organic waste like the one in “Al-Gabal Al-Asfar” that produces around one million cubic meters of biogas out of human waste. T
