Questair takes renewable compressed natural gas, from biomass, to the next level

New options on renewable compressed natural gas have emerged from Questair, which is building out operations in British Columbia but targeting the US and European markets as well as domestic Canada. The offering, for those well versed in engineering, is called pressure swing adsorption.

Questair’s edge is in shrinking the size of equipment, increasing the frequency of processing and pushing through more gas. More gas, more yield. To date, the renewable natural gas market has primarily been anaerobic digesters that produce an unprocessed methane that the Germans pour into engines and power.

The German government has developed a range of subsidies to support that. However, purifying the natural gas opens up new markets for rCNG vehicles, especially when the CO2 is removed. Questair, thereby, has installed four new systems in Switzerland where the Swiss are encouraging renewable CNG for transport.

According to Questair, renewable CNG could account for as much as 10-20 percent of the CNG market envisioned in the highly-publicized Pickens Plan. The technology works for capture and purification of gas with 500-100 head of cattle, for which there are 7000 sites in the  US. About 50-70 Gigajoules can be captured from a 5,000 head dairy farm, and 5,000 head is only a midsize cattle operation in the US. The company is developing a project in central California, with power generation the focus and the farm is connected to the grid for the purpose of load balancing.

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