November 8, 2024

CMA CGM and Suez sign deal to boost production of low-carbon biomethane

By Jim Wilson

International ocean shipping major, CMA CGM, has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Suez Group, a a global leader in the water and waste management, to produce biomethane from waste recovery.

How much? A lot!

According to CMA CGM, Suez will supply up to 100,000 tonnes of biomethane per year by 2030, which would then be used by the shipping line for its gas powered ships. The companies have also agreed to the creation of a joint investment structure, with an initial funding of EUR 100m, for a first stage by 2030 to develop biomethane. The sites will initially be located in Europe. The two have also agreed joint research and development initiatives aimed at designing innovative technologies for the production of biofuels.

Rodolphe Saadé, Chairman and CEO of CMA CGM Group, said: “The strategic partnership between CMA CGM and SUEZ, one of France’s leading players in the energy transition, marks a major step forward. It will enable us to support the biomethane sector dedicated to the shipping industry, while accelerating the decarbonisation of CMA CGM Group and guaranteeing our carbon neutrality trajectory by 2050″.

Sabrina Soussan, Chairman and CEO of SUEZ, said: “I am delighted to be working with the CMA CGM Group, a key player in maritime transport. Together, we are going to develop circular solutions that will contribute to the decarbonisation of this strategic sector in Europe. This partnership for biomethane production is a further illustration of SUEZ’s ambition to turn waste into new resources for the energy transition of the transport sector.”

Neither CMA CGM or Suez go into great detail about how the biomethane will be generated.

Waste to energy

The International Energy Agency, the European Biogas Association, and energy giant Repsol, do provide a high level overview.

In summary, a wide variety of biological origin wastes including but not limited to fruit peels, waste food, egg shells, coffee grounds, sewerage sludge from wastewater plants, agricultural wastes, livestock wastes, municipal solid waster, etc is collected and is dumped into an “anerobic” (i.e. without oxygen) digester. That’s basically a big sealed container or tank that is dark inside. Dump in a variety of hungry bacteria, agitate the wastes for 20 to 30 days at a temperature of around 30 degrees Celsius (or greater than 50 degrees Celsius depending on the process used) and you will find yourself in possession of a variety of valuable industrial chemicals including carbon dioxide, nitrous dioxide, water, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, volatile organic compounds, methane, phosphorous, and the like.

Most of the gas, anywhere between 45% to 75ish percent will be CH4 – that’s methane to you and me – which is a compound gas composed of one carbon atom to four hydrogen atoms. Most of the rest of the gas is carbon dioxide (CO2). This mix of gases is known as “biogas” and it can be purified to make “biomethane”, which, as the name suggests is basically 100% methane.

Biomethane has a heating value of about 36 joules per cubic metre, and it’s basically indistinguishable from natural (i.e. fossil fuel) gas. As such, it can be supercooled and liquefied to create liquefied natural gas of a biological origin i.e. bio-LNG. That LNG can be pumped into an appropriate LNG-powered ship, which certainly appears to be CMA CGM’s plan.

Going green: biomethane

Provided that any energy used to power the process originates from renewable sources (e.g. solar, wind, geothermal, tide, wave and the like) and bio-methane and bio-LNG can basically be considered to be a green power source. While, yes, it does contain carbon, that carbon had a biological origin – ultimately some kind of plant. Plants, as you may recall, use sunlight to power photosynthesis which is the process of drawing carbon dioxide and water into the plant from the environment (carbon dioxide via leaves and water via roots), splitting the water and carbon dioxide into their respective atoms and then re-arranging those atoms into molecules that build the body of the plant.

So it can been that burning bio-LNG does not add to the planetary carbon dioxide burden as combustion of bio-LNG is merely returning carbon dioxide back to the atmosphere from whence it originally came.

Pros and cons

There are a range of disadvantages and benefits to this process.

The other trace chemicals created in the process, ammonia and the like, will have a range of uses such as fertilizers, although there are concerns that redirecting organic wastes to biogas production could cause supply shortages of feedstocks for fertilizers. Other chemicals generated in the process could be put to other industrial use. Meanwhile, using various organic wastes could (potentially) reduce the burden on global waste management systems and reduce the requirement for landfill and garbage dumps. Any methane gas produced will naturally work well with existing natural gas infrastructure so replacing or upgrading infrastructure is not necessary. Using bio-LNG would displace the use of fossil fuel LNG that would otherwise be used and all LNG is a lot cleaner than standard bunker fuel in terms of particulate matter, nitrous oxide, and sulphur dioxide emissions – all of which are quite damaging to plant, animal, human and ecosystem health.

And let’s not forget the cost angle. A 2022 IEA Bioenergy position paper, “The role of biogas and biomethane in pathway to net zero”, very pointedly remarks that “It is remarkable to see the positivity associated with hydrogen in current (political) discussions”. The authors of that paper point out the the current (Dec 2022) costs for biomethane are suggested to vary from a low of EUR25 / MWh to a high of EUR100 / MWh… these prices are below current fossil gas prices in Europe… we may say at the moment biomethane is cheaper than green hydrogen and is expected to remain so for some time in the future…”