What Is Biogas?
Biogas is an energy source that is made by breaking down organic matter, like animal waste. It’s a type of gas produced at factory farms. Machines called methane digesters turn manure “lagoons” into gas and ship it through underground pipelines.
Biogas has a lot of support from Big Ag corporations and politicians, but is it an effective way to mitigate the negative environmental effects of factory farming?
Why Biogas Is a False Climate Solution
Instead of working to remedy the environmental impacts of industrial animal farming, biogas has emerged as a new money-making industry that could further entrench our corporatized food system. That means more industry power could shift to corporations at the expense of small-scale farms and true climate solutions.
Minimizing our food system’s environmental footprint is critical, and reducing herd sizes is a key tactic. But biogas may actually incentivize factory farms to raise more animals so they can create more methane. In fact, our research shows that some dairy facilities did just that after having biogas systems permitted or installed.
Another significant problem is that biogas systems, which are built to reduce methane emissions, do not address the other pollutants produced by large volumes of animal waste. In fact, a study from the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project and Friends of the Earth found that the digesters resulted in only an 11% reduction in annual methane production.
Many critics and communities near digesters also have very real concerns about digester infrastructure—namely, leaky pipelines. Evidence suggests that biogas supply chains leak about 60% more often than EPA estimates. Leaks, which can prove deadly, also negate much of the environmental benefits of the systems.
A system that relies on unsustainable practices will always offer limited results. That’s what sets true climate solutions, like farm transitions, apart from biogas.
Biogas and Environmental Justice
We can’t talk about the negative repercussions of methane digesters without also talking about the people who will be most affected by them. A reliance on biogas will have the greatest impact on low-income communities and communities of color where factory farms are disproportionately located.
For one, biogas systems focus on methane gas. They do nothing to address the other pollutants found in animal waste, including nitrogen and ammonia. Nitrogen seeps into groundwater, impacting drinking water for vulnerable communities. It also contributes to toxic algae blooms that create dead zones in waterways.
Ammonia contributes to harmful smog and fine particulate matter in the atmosphere. Studies suggest that these pollutants are the source of around 17,900 deaths each year in the United States!
Because these communities often lack the political power and capital to fight for policies that might protect them, industrial animal agriculture is given a thriving foothold to continue expanding herds, further entrenching the system.
Why Reliance on Biogas Harms Small- and Mid-Size Farmers
A concern among small- to mid-scale farmers is the cost of these systems. Because digesters cost between $2 million to $9 million to install, they typically require public subsidies to build. And because smaller farms do not produce enough manure to justify these expenses, the farmers miss out on important climate-smart funding.
Many taxpayer-funded programs support the biogas industry. These include federal grant and loan programs, federal tax incentives, technical assistance, and state-level programs. These and other programs may actually create an incentive for practices that maximize, instead of reduce, manure and methane production. This, in turn, encourages farmers to expand their herd sizes, increasing consolidation and power among large-scale producers.
Redirecting these resources to more effective and less expensive practices, like herd-size reduction, decreased food waste, and farm transitions would have a much greater impact on shrinking our food’s carbon footprint.
Don’t buy the greenwashing.