A Sankey diagram says more than 1000 pie charts
A Sankey diagram of O2 contamination during pressure water scrubbing from a paper on ‘Oxygen Removal during Biogas Upgrading using iron-based Adsorbents’ by Toni Raabe of DBI – Gastechnologisches Institut gGmbH Freiberg in Germany.
Flows of methane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and oxygen are shown in vol-%. The flow rate (in m³ per hour) is given in a small table at each stage of the process chain (biomethane-process chain via pressure water scrubbing).
An article by Bachmaier, Hans; Effenberger, Mathias and Gronauer, Andreas in German agricultural technology publication ‘Landtechnik’ 65 (2010), no. 3, pp. 208-212 describes how “for ten agricultural biogas plants, a detailed balance of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and cumulated energy demand (CED) was calculated”.
Below is the Sankey diagram for plant E that has the “best GHG balance of all ten plants with net savings of 85 g CO2-eq per kWh el. Characteristics are a high share of poultry manure in the input saves energy for crop production; no additional mineral fertilizer needed; credit for surplus digested residue; high level of heat use.”
Biogas plant G has “Regular treatment of animal manure from own livestock; intermediate level of heat use; high methane emissions from CGU; high demand of fossil resources during plant operation (electricity supply from grid, fuel oil).”
Both diagrams feature the GHG emission burdens in CO2-eq per kWh electric energy produced from biogas. Upstream chains for fertilizer, diesel and electricity taken into account too. Displaced GHG emissions nonus in green. It is interesting to see that in this agricultural energy scenario methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) are contributing to climate change in the same dimension as carbon dioxide.