Biogas Energy

SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/8868 wwwwwwwwwwwww Tasneem Abbasi    S.M. Tauseef    S.A. Abbasi ● Biogas Energy ● Tasneem Abbasi Centre for Pollution Control and Environmental Engineering Pondicherry University, Kalapet Puducherry 605 014, India S.M. Tauseef Centre for Pollution Control and Environmental Engineering Pondicherry University, Kalapet Puducherry 605 014, India S.A. Abbasi Centre for Pollution Control and Environmental Engineering Pondicherry University, Kalapet Puducherry 605 014, India [email protected] ISBN 978-1-4614-1039-3 e-ISBN 978-1-4614-1040-9 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-1040-9 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2011939062 © Tasneem Abbasi 2012 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Dedicated to Aunties Neelu, Sophia, and Rubi –Tasneem Abbasi Papa (Abid Hussain Saheb), Ammi (Tasneem Fatima Sahiba), and my beloved wife Rabab –S.M. Tauseef Didi (Nilofer Changi), Aapa (Sophia Kapasi), and Rubi behn –S.A. Abbasi wwwwwwwwwwwww Foreword For most of the twentieth century “biogas” was perceived as a poor man’s fuel. India and China led the initiative of the developing countries in extracting biogas from animal manure to meet the much needed source of energy for farmers in villages. To developed countries, however, biogas was too lean and too inconvenient a fuel compared to the then abundantly available and cheaper petroleum-based fuels. Hence they either released the biogas that got generated in to atmosphere during manure management or from sanitary landfills, or flared it off when there was a danger of it forming a flammable cloud upon release. For a short while developed countries did look at biogas as a potential fuel during 1973 and 1979 when “oil shocks” crisis hit them. But when the crisis passed off and oil prices dipped through the 1980s, the biogas again went out of contention in the developed world just as other non-conventional energy sources did. The perceptions saw a sea change at the beginning of twenty-first century in the wake of an imminent threat to the existence of life on the planet earth due to global warming. The world has realized that methane – which is the major component of “biogas” – is the second biggest contr