Biogas
Also called: Gobar gas · Topic: Energy Resources of India: Conventional and Non-conventional · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 5 "Minerals and Energy Resources"
Meaning
Biogas is a gas, mostly methane, given off when shrubs, farm waste and animal and human waste rot in a closed tank. It burns with more useful heat than kerosene, dung cake or charcoal. Biogas plants can run at the level of a town, a cooperative or a single household. The leftover slurry is good manure. Cattle-dung plants are called gobar gas plants. They give the farmer both fuel and better manure, which makes them the most efficient use of dung (Class 10).
Example
In a village, a household gobar gas plant can take dung from the family's cattle. It gives clean cooking gas and returns rich manure to the fields. GOBARdhan (2018) supports such village biogas plants (verify current).
Don't confuse with
- Compressed biogas: biogas that has been cleaned and compressed to sell as vehicle and industrial fuel under SATAT (2018). Plain biogas is mostly used near where it is made.
- Natural gas: also mostly methane, but it is a fossil fuel found with petroleum underground. Biogas comes from fresh waste and is renewable.