The biomethane producing potential in China: A theoretical and practical estimation

Biomethane has been developed rapidly in many countries as a renewable energy which upgraded from biogas. China also began to pay attention to it even though we still at a initial stage, primarily, understanding the biomethane potential and development prospect, choosing appropriate biomass as the biomethane source is very important. In this work, the theoretical and practical biomethane producing potential from five main biomass resources in China were estimated with appropriate methods based on the data collected, and during calculation, two appropriate energy crops were assumed to be planted on marginal lands for biomethane production. Our estimation showed that the theoretical and practical biomethane potentials in China can reach to 888.78 and 316.30 billion m³ per year, agricultural waste should be the preferential development biomass, and planting energy crops on marginal lands is the most promising way to enhance biomethane production in China. Finally, biomethane is compared with natural gas, and the result showed that 48.15% of the practical biomethane potential can meet the total Chinese natural gas consumption in 2013.