Renewable energy from food waste business Bio Capital is to begin manufacturing food grade CO2 gas at two UK sites – in a move it said would help tackle the “major shortfalls” threatened by the crisis in the bioethanol industry.
Production of the gas will come fully on stream at Bio Capital’s Granville Eco Park anaerobic digestion facility in Northern Ireland “within the next few months”, and at its Corbiere plant in Norfolk, before the end of the year.
The two sites will produce 15,000 tonnes of CO2 – used in everything from packaging to livestock slaughtering and the carbonation of drinks – each year, representing between 2% and 4% of the UK’s needs for the critically important gas.
Bio Capital’s announcement comes as the UK bioethanol sector – from which CO2 gas is manufactured as a byproduct – teeters on the edge of collapse.
The UK’s removal of UK tariffs on 1.4 billion litres of US ethanol in May’s transatlantic trade deal left the sector’s two biggest players, German chemical giant Ensus and Associated British Foods-owned Vivergo, warning their business models had been left “unviable”.
Vivergo – which did not produce CO2 gas but had plans to – shuttered its plant in Hull in mid-August after bailout talks with the government collapsed.
Ensus, which produces around 30% of the UK’s CO2 gas, was still in talks with the government over its own rescue package this week, having warned on several occasions over the past four months its Wilton site on Teeside faces “imminent closure”.
Some 60% of the remaining 70% of the UK CO2 gas market is understood to be sourced via imports, with about 10% coming from anaerobic digestion plants.
Bio Capital’s entry into the CO2 market represented “a significant investment” for the business, it said.
AD plants generally produce a biogas mixture of approximately 50%-70% methane and 30%-50% CO2. While the methane is already repurposed to produce renewable electricity and green gas to the grid and fuel vehicles, its new “state-of-the-art CO2 recovery systems allow us to capture and repurpose the carbon portion”, it added.
Granville Eco Park is the largest facility of its kind in Northern Ireland. With a 90,000-tonne food waste capacity it operates 24/7 and was described as a “cornerstone for scale and reliability, thereby enabling Bio Capital to produce consistent and reliable supplies of CO2”.
“Bio Capital is a pioneer in the AD sector, and we are proud to be realising a new milestone in the supply of renewable CO2,” said interim CEO David McKee.
“This is the circular economy in action and the investment we’ve made at our plants in Northern Ireland and England is coming to fruition at a time when the UK is facing a major shortfall in domestic CO2 production,” McKee added. “Bio Capital is then able to offer a sustainable and reliable supply of ‘food grade’ CO2 at a crucial time for the market.”
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