Doubling down on biomethane

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In her State of the Union address to the European Parliament last week, European Commission President von der Leyen stated that climate change is one of "the tipping points of our time," and that how Europe manages it will determine the continents future prosperity and security.

She reiterated that "Europe can, must and will stay the course on its climate targets," but with the caveat that the bloc "cannot remain an industrial powerhouse if its energy prices are structurally too high."

In response she called for Europe to "double down on our affordable, homegrown, clean energy. Be it renewables and nuclear, or biomethane and others. Technologically neutral. But they must give us independence and drive down energy prices"

Although attention tends to focus on renewables and nuclear, it's not a surprise to see biomethane amongst the list of energy sources cited by von der Leyen. The impetus to grow Europe's biomethane production capacity gathered pace after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and was a key part of REPowerEU, the Commissions framework for how Europe could “rapidly reduce dependence on Russian fossil fuels and fast forward the green transition.”

Carbon Risk has discussed Europe's biomethane opportunity before (see here and here). Has anything changed since we last examined it that makes doubling down on biomethane even more compelling? Before we get to that lets first recap what biomethane is, the climate benefits it brings, and why it is so versatile from an energy security perspective.