What Could China Give to and Take from Other Countries in Terms of the Development of the Biogas Industry?

Abstract

Anaerobic digestion is one of the most sustainable and promising technologies for the management of organic residues. China plays an important role in the world's biogas industry and has accumulated rich and valuable experience, both positive and negative. The country has established relatively complete laws, policies and a subsidy system; its world-renowned standard system guarantees the implementation of biogas projects. Its prefabricated biogas industry has been developed, and several biogas-linked agricultural models have been disseminated. Nonetheless, the subsidy system in China's biogas industry is inflexible and cannot lead to marketization, unlike that of its European counterpart. Moreover, the equipment and technology levels of China's biogas industry are still lagging and underdeveloped. Mono-digestion, rather than co-digestion, dominates the biogas industry. In addition, biogas upgrading technology is immature, and digestate lacks planning and management. China's government subsidy is reconsidered in this work, resulting in the recommendation that subsidy should be based on products (i.e., output-oriented) instead of only input subsidy for construction. The policy could focus on the revival of abandoned biogas plants as well.Sustainability 2020, 12, 1490 2 of 21 effectively and widely implemented in countries where governments and institutions are involved in the subsidy, planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of biogas plants [7,8]. A number of countries in Asia and Africa have launched massive campaigns to popularize biogas technology via government support and international aid (Table 1) [9,10]. Globally, it is estimated that 50 million micro-digesters (family size), 132,000 biogas engineering projects (about 15,000 in Europe [11]) and 700 biogas upgrading plants are operating [12]. Promotion of biogas technology has several opportunities and obstacles. Numerous studies have focused on these aspects to discuss the country scenario. Many case and field studies have aimed to assess biogas technology to verify its multiple benefits [13,14] and identify potential barriers [8,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. However, these studies are limited to individual country scenarios. The progress and prospect of the biogas industry in different nations vary widely. Nearly no crosswise comparisons have been made for different countries. The current study intends to fill this gap.China leads the world in domestic biogas technology. With the expansion of the biogas industry, lessons learned, whether positive or negative, would be valuable and abundant for countries whose biogas industry is still at the initial stage, including nations mainly in South and Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Meanwhile, along with the development of medium-and large-scale biogas plants (MLBPs), progress is not trouble-free [22]. (According to the Chinese biogas standard NY/T 667-2011 Classification of Scale for Biogas Engineering, the thresholds of medium-scale and large-scale biogas plant are 300 m 3 and 500 m...

Technologies, challenges and perspectives of biogas production within an agricultural context. The case of China and Africa

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“…It has become a standard for the design of domestic prefabricated digesters like the Puxin digester (Jegede et al 2019). The most common prefabricated biogas digesters in China are flexible plastic digesters and composite material digesters (Lei et al 2020). Flexible plastic digesters are very efficient due to their low cost and ease of implementation and use.…”

Factors Influencing the Willingness of Dairy Farmers to Adopt Biogas Plants: A Case Study in Hokkaido, Japan

“…FIT schemes for gas supply should be institutionalized in Japan. Zheng et al (2020) showed the importance of subsidizing the production of BGPs [57]. It may be possible to consider support in the form of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investments from the viewpoint of improving environmental problems and regional economies, for which the dairy farmers who are willing to adopt BGPs would be responsible.…”

Materials for the design and construction of household biogas digesters for biogas production: A review

“…Germany published the detailed guideline on the safe use of material for the construction of biogas technology 85 . Comparing biogas technology in well‐developed countries in Europe, household biogas digester is specific because of their application in the intensive farm for power generation in Europe 86 . In term of biogas engineering standard, China dominated the biogas standard and the number accounts for approximately 1/3 of the total biogas standard 82 .…”

“…85 Comparing biogas technology in well-developed countries in Europe, household biogas digester is specific because of their application in the intensive farm for power generation in Europe. 86 In term of biogas engineering standard, China dominated the biogas standard and the number accounts for approximately 1/3 of the total biogas standard. 82 Wang et al 17 reported that biogas standard system in other developing countries is difficult to match with the Chinese biogas standard pace.…”