EU’s 35 bcm target for biomethane ‘unrealistic’, campaigners say

EU plans to produce 35 billion cubic metres of biomethane annually by 2030 are “both unrealistic and unsustainable”, campaigners warned on Wednesday (22 November) as EU countries debate legislation to decarbonise the gas sector and promote alternatives like green hydrogen.

An analysis of the underlying assumptions behind the EU’s 35 billion cubic metres (bcm) goal for biomethane, a renewable natural gas, shows that the target will at best be unachievable and at worst cause serious environmental damage, according to a new report by Feedback EU, a green campaign group.

The rising volumes of agricultural feedstocks that would be needed to meet the objective – such as maize, straw, food waste and manure – either come with downsides or unintended consequences such as encouraging more livestock production or driving competition between food, feed and fuel, the campaigners warn.

“A 35 bcm target and lack of strong legal safeguards regarding unsustainable feedstock is not only completely unrealistic but, if made binding, would lead to a ‘scramble for feedstocks’ causing unintended knock-on and lock-in effects,” said Frank Mechielsen, director of Feedback EU.

Scepticism about the 35 bcm annual production target is echoed by Thierry Bros, a professor at Sciences Po University in Paris who is also a regular contributor to Natural Gas World, a trade publication.

“It’s not realistic because biomethane is very expensive,” Bros told Euractiv when asked about the feasibility of reaching the 35 bcm goal.

“I’m not against over-ambitious targets if in the end we achieve at least 50% of the objective. I’m against targets that we never reach, or only reach by 10%, like hydrogen,” he said in emailed comments.

Gas industry pushing for a legally-binding target

The European Commission put forward the 35 bcm target in May last year, as part its REPowerEU plan tabled in reaction to Russia’s war in Ukraine. A Biomethane Action Plan, published in a separate staff working document, outlined key areas of action to meet this goal, including faster permitting rules and financing to ramp up production volumes.

The European Parliament endorsed the 35 bcm target in February and even proposed making it a legally binding obligation on EU countries as part of the proposed Hydrogen and gas decarbonisation package tabled by the European Commission two years ago.

EU member states are now also discussing the proposal, but there is little appetite among them to make the target a legally binding obligation.

“I think that there is a low chance that it will become binding as the Council are not fully supportive,” said James Watson, secretary general of Eurogas, a trade association. “We know some countries are, but others don’t want ‘more Brussels targets’,” he told Euractiv in emailed comments.

“It very much depends on the Parliament sticking to their guns to even get a recital,” Watson said, referring to the statement of reasons listed in the preamble of EU laws.

Because biomethane was not listed as a legally binding objective, the Commission also did not produce a detailed cost-benefit analysis of the target when it published its proposal last year.

Yet, Eurogas believes there are strong grounds for making it legally binding, drawing attention to the biomethane industry partnership (BIP) launched by the European Commission last year to support the achievement of the EU’s biomethane goal.

“With biomethane, we can replace fossil gas from Russia with homegrown, sustainable and renewable gas,” said the EU’s former Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans when he announced the partnership in September last year.

Environmental risks

At the same time, the Commission also recognises the environmental challenges coming with increased volumes of biomethane, saying in its 2022 action plan that production “should be waste-based, avoiding the use of food and feed feedstocks that would lead to land use change problems”.

Researchers at Feedback EU, for their part, argue in favour of “a more conservative target”, set in accordance with independent scientific advice, starting with the Commission’s own Group of Chief Scientific Advisors.

“Let us set a new biomethane target, one that allows it to play its important but niche role, in a truly decarbonised future,” said Karen Luyckx, one of the technical advisors who conducted the research on behalf of Feedback EU.

The researchers also warn about the risk of gas leaking from infrastructure in the biomethane supply chain, saying this could result in potentially higher emissions of methane per unit of gas than is the case for fossil gas.

“As a consequence, the 35 bcm biomethane target may well end up contributing to climate change as opposed to helping to mitigate it,” they warn.

[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]

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