Jonas Strömberg, Head of Sustainable Transport at the global lorry manufacturer Scania, described how the company can help reduce emissions.
“Approximately 24 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from road transport, and 10 per cent come from methane leakage from landfill sites. As much as 90 per cent of all organic waste ends up in landfill, which also contributes to the greenhouse effect. At the same time, this material can instead be used to produce biogas,” said Jonas Strömberg.
Scania, together with its partner Elof Hansson International, has introduced an export package offering a complete solution for converting waste into biogas fuel. The package is based on Swedish technology and can be applied globally. Jonas Strömberg compares biogas to a classic multi-tool.
“It is like a Swiss Army knife. It significantly reduces carbon dioxide emissions, returns nutrients to the soil through biofertiliser, addresses waste problems and creates local jobs and local energy. The gas can also be produced close to the users. Biogas is very well suited for heavy transport, which is more difficult to electrify, and it is possible to switch between biogas and fossil natural gas,” said Strömberg. He added:
“It is great that our local Scania organisations from, for example, Latin America can come here and learn how to market biogas solutions.”
Jonas Strömberg led the group from Latin America that visited Sweden. Scania is a member of the BSRC network. Part of the visit to Sweden was a full day in Linköping to see various biogas facilities and to take a guided tour of the biogas laboratory at Linköping University.
“Here we investigate new methods for converting organic waste into biogas and high-quality digestate. We focus on improving existing biogas processes and testing new types of substrate in order to increase production in the future,” said Annika Björn.
The methods that researchers test in small containers can fairly easily be scaled up for large-scale production.
“We learn a great deal from the users and base our work on research and development needs. One example is developing new process concepts that allow manure to be digested on a larger scale by increasing the breakdown of proteins.”
There is still more to discover in the wake of biogas.
“We have not yet identified and developed all the societal benefits of the biogas process. One example is creating longer fatty acids and using them in biochemicals, which means upgrading materials that were once considered waste into something useful,” said Annika Björn.
