Profitability analysis of biomethane and calcium carbonate co-production from biogas and FGD gypsum

Book chapter, 2023

This chapter showcases a profitability analysis of a green route to co-produce biomethane and CaCO3 from biogas streams. The baseline scenario selected shows negative economic outputs for all the biogas production plant sizes analyzed. The highest costs are associated with the raw materials or consumables needed to run the process, while biomethane and CaCO3 revenues share are quite similar. Besides, the analysis of the baseline scenario shows that the negative economic outputs obtained can be reverted by increasing the biogas production plant size. In fact, with 50% of the investment subsidized, still 29 €/MWh of subsidies as feed-in tariffs would be needed for the smallest biogas production plant size to reach an NPV equal to zero. Overall, this study proves the great challenge that our society faces in terms of developing an economically profitable circular economy based on bio-resources.