Biotechnological Conversion Processes

It aims at the stabilization of aggregated anthropogenic carbon dioxide equivalent emissions of the greenhouse gasses listed in the Protocol and commits 40 industrialized countries, and countries with economies in transition to lower their GHG emissions by at least 5,2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.   

The Renewable Energy Sources Act or EEG (German: Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz) is a series of German laws that originally provided a feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme to encourage the generation of renewable electricity.  

Tariffs  in the EEG paid for Biogas Plants starting in 2009.

The purpose of this Act is to enable the energy supply to develop sustainably in particular in the interest of mitigating climate change and protecting the environment, to reduce the costs to the economy not least by including long-term external effects, to conserve fossil energy resources and to promote the further development of technologies to generate electricity from renewable energy sources.

Two main reasons:

a) the economical crisis that heats the EU after 2010

b) reticence and pushbacks on issues relating the energy security, environmental sustainability, and the cost-effectiveness of the use of biogas technology (food vs fuel).

Because the big biogas installations use more fuels for their run, need more amounts of feedstocks (food crops) and they do not ensure energy security at the end when all inputs are taken into consideration.

The small biogas installations use biowaste from the nearby farms, unlike big ones that have to spend a lot of fuel to transport the feedstock from elsewhere. 

Chances of breakdowns in energy supply are lowered if you have a more decentralized system with smaller plants and when one or two get e.g. contaminated it is less severe than when you have big plants and one of them gets affected in some way

By the end of the 20th century, governments and policymakers around the world faced three key issues:

i) worries about energy security;

ii) commitment to economic development, including the creation and sustaining of jobs, particularly in agriculture; and

iii) the need to mitigate global climate change and achieve lower GHG emissions.

More advanced technologies in terms of substrate pretreatment and microbiological methods lead to higher throughput and more efficient processes.  

Another reason was the introduction of the tariff legislation-EEG that was set up in relation to these discussions.

The Renewable Energy Sources Act or EEG (German: Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz) is a series of German laws that originally provided a feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme to encourage the generation of renewable electricity.

> Investment protection through guaranteed feed-in tariffs and connection requirements.

> No charge to German public finances.

> Innovation by decreasing feed-in-tariffs.

Hydroelectric, Wind power, Solar power, Biomass, Geothermal.

The Kyoto basket encompasses the following six greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and the so-called F-gases(hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). Each gas is weighted by its global warming potential and aggregated to give total greenhouse gas emissions in CO2 equivalents.