What’s about 28 times more concerning than carbon emissions? Methane releases into the atmosphere. It’s the same amount of carbon but with a much higher immediate global warming impact. Hence the concern when a recent study shows how we underestimate the emissions of biomethane production by a factor of two!
What’s wrong with the biomethane supply chain? Where does it leak the most? Who are these 5% of bad pupils responsible for over 60% of the emissions? What can we do about it? Let’s explore:
with 🎙️ Semra Bakkaloglu – Research Associate at the Imperial College of London
💧 Semra recently showed in her research how the methane emissions along the biosolids supply chain were vastly underestimated and proposed straightforward actions to correct it swiftly.
What we covered:
📈 How methane concentration in the atmosphere is at an all-time high and has more than doubled since preindustrial times
🧑🔬 How the rising trend is ongoing, as the latest IPCC reports confirm
💥 How methane has a disproportionate impact on climate change and just puts the problem on steroids
⚒️ How biomethane production lines proportionally emit more than the traditional natural gas supply chain
🤒 How the development of the biomethane supply chain may have adverse effects if we don’t sort out the super emitters
📈 How one specific step of the biomethane production process emits much more than the others and which one it is
📉 How the lowest hanging fruit to leverage Semra’s research is to sort out the super-emitters and more than halve the emissions of biomethane production
😊 Being part of the solution rather than the problem, better understanding the biomethane supply chain, production means, and treatment steps, applying Semra’s research in the water industry, the possible next steps… and much more!
🔥 … and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥
Resources:
➡️ Send your warm regards to Semra on LinkedIn
➡️ Read Semra Bakkaloglu’s research paper on the underestimated methane emissions along the biomethane and biogas supply chains
is on Linkedin ➡️
Teaser: The Disproportionate Impact of Biomethane Production super-emitters
Infographic: The underestimated emissions of Biomethane Production processes
Infographic-Semra-Bakkaloglu-Imperial-College-London-Biomethane-Leaks-to-the-AtmosphereTable of contents
Full Transcript:
These are computer-generated, so expect some typos 🙂
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Antoine Walter: Hi Semra, welcome to the show!
Semra Bakkaloglu: Hi Antoine.
Antoine Walter: Actually, you’re touching on a topic today, which I’m really interested in because when I started my career, if might say so in water treatments, my first duty was to look at biogas production in a wastewater treatment plant. And what I read in your research paper makes me think that there are a lot of things I ignored about that biomethane production.
So that’s gonna be the big bone of what we discussed today. But before that I have traditions on that microphone and that starts with the postcard. What can you tell me about the place you’re at, which I would ignore by now?
Semra Bakkaloglu: I was in this west of London, which is a quite nice area. I’m staying at the Imperial College staff accommodation, which is quite good. I’m having fun with this conversation. Yeah. I’m waiting to have fun.
Antoine Walter: So you are working at the Imperial College.
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yes. I’m doing my post-doc studies.
Antoine Walter: Actually on your path, that’s interesting to see that you’ve been through many different aspects of that industry. A bit, aside from that industry, then back as a researcher, can you take me through your steps?
Semra Bakkaloglu: Actually right now I have been working as a research associate at the sustainable gas Institute at the Imperial College of London since October 2020. I receive a double major in chemical engineering and environmental engineering from a middle east technical university in Turkey and my undergrad degree in environmental engineering focuses on water and wastewater treatments.
We design wastewater treatment plant for a final year project. And after my bachelor’s, I went to go us to do my master degree at the Clems university as a Fulbright scholar. And my master’s study was on water treatment using super fine activated carbon absorption.
And after receiving my master degree, I come back to Turkey. To get industrial working experience. And I work at a Turk Petro in refinery for three years in the charge of environmental processes, such as wastewater treatment plan and the greenhouse gas emissions monitoring and reporting. As you can see, I was more knowable about water and west water treatment before my PhD.
However, my research on greenhouse gas emissions from petroli refineries. Led me to Del deeper into the subject of climate change and as a part of horizon, 2020 EU funded project, I receive my PhD in waste sector’s methane emissions from Royal hallway, university of London as a mercury early stage researcher.
And this project concentrated on methane emissions and there is to be characterization across Europe and in my academic life, I was in the top percent of my classes and I passion about the science and research and my ambitions was to be a top researcher on that topic at the global level.
And to be a four runner in expanding my research test on a large scale. And here I have been continuing my post-doctoral studies at Imperial college London.
Antoine Walter: And what attracted you to, to that field of these renewable gases , green gases, biogas? What was the key elements that brought you to that field?
Semra Bakkaloglu: During my PhD I focused on methane emissions from waste sources, mainly landfills and waste water treatment plans. On the other hand, the number of biogas plans in the UK have been growing. And we would like to do some campaigns on that size to see if they are empty or. I became very interested in methane emissions from biogas plants after catching a methane balloon from one of the biogas plants during our mobile site analysis.
And you know that this is the renewable gas for the biogas, and this is the point to get more benefit from the waste. If it is emit, we have a question marks in there and up until now, there was no study to assess the entire supply chain emission. And we aim to combine all the available tissue data and analyze the results to better understand methane emissions across the biogas and biomethane supply chain.
As a biomethane would play significant role in the decarbonization strategies and the methane emissions has a greater global warming potential compared to carbon dioxide. And it is very important greenhouse gases that we should take attention on it.
Antoine Walter: , that research you’re mentioning. I, I have one of the papers with me right now. So that’s a bit what I was hinting to in this opening. And I learned. Two main things in that paper. The first is I learned what a Monte Carlo approach is. When I read that I thought, okay, maybe it’s it’s a car rally, or maybe it has something to do with casino, something like that.
And then I went to Wikipedia and I discovered how little I know about this kind of approaches, but it is a research approach. And it’s a method with, I mean, all of that, but that’s a bit, the joke the real thing I learned is. How little we know about the emissions of the methane supply chain.
And that is really the heart, as you said, nobody was really looking at that in a thorough way. And that’s really what your research is bringing to the table. It’s putting a number and it’s placing the debate. Just to give a magnitude of order.
the number have in mind is that methane is about 28 to 30 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon. Yeah. So that’s what we’re discussing here. It’s that maybe you have less volume, but the effect in terms of greenhouse gas is much larger.
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yes, it is. According to one year horizon methane has 27.2 greater global warming potential than carbon dioxide. Methane is the biogenic methane the last IPCC report also reported to other global warming potential for the fossil. And non-fossil methane. That’s why we are interested in the methane emissions and, the COP 26 people, the countries just pledge the, for the global methane emissions.
They targeted to reduce their methane emissions, mainly from the oil and gas sector 30% reduction by 2030. We all try to get the net zero emission goal by the 2050, that’s why we are focusing more emissions the greenhouse gas emissions, especially methane emissions compared to the carbon dioxide
Antoine Walter: And the interesting thing in investigating the biomethane is that it’s often referred to as something which is carbon neutral because that carbon is present by the entry. So if you are able to Ize it as biogas and burn it, the total mass balance is neutral, but that assumes we burn it because if we release it to the atmosphere, it’s still carbon neutral in terms of the number of molecules we have.
But. That means that for a while we have methane and not carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And that is really the trouble I’m really oversimplifying and making it for the muggles. But just to make sure I understood the big line and the big challenge.
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yes. Yes, exactly. You explain very well. Yeah. The carbon dioxide emissions, the biomethane doesn’t contribute to the carbon dioxide emissions, but. Significant part is the methane emissions rather than carbon dioxide emissions. Yeah. That’s why we try to understand where is this methane is coming from how we can reduce this because the study shows that the atmospheric methane concentration is still rising.
And the reason behind it is still controversial, that where it has come from exactly. If you know where it has come from, we can make more accurate emission reduction strategies.
Antoine Walter: So before jumping to the results of your study, I was wondering, where did you get your data from? How on, what do you do? You build your.
Semra Bakkaloglu: I actually, the data comes from the literature where the previous studies publish the emission data. Various sites. I actually divide the data according to each supply chain, such as feed stock, biogas generation biogas, upgrading transmission storage and distribution line and the digestate sludge handling. And then I elevate the characteristics of each stage data.
After that we summed the each stage emissions using the statistical methods known as the Monte Carlo simulation. As you mentioned, the Monte Carlo simulation is widely. They used to assess greenhouse gas emissions, and it allows us to evaluate uncertain assessment coming from the calculation, the summation of the each stage emissions.
That’s how I get the data and how evaluate the total emission.
Antoine Walter: You mentioned these various steps, maybe it’s important at that stage to, to just explain what you have in these various steps. So there’s the the feed stock storage and feeding. Then we have this biogas processing, which is where the biogas gets produced.
Semra Bakkaloglu: An Arabic digesters. Just so sorry for the jumping. Yeah.
Antoine Walter: So yeah, processing is the digester. Then you have the upgrades processing. So you are refining that biomethane at that stage it’s biogas and you turn it into biomethane so that it can be used for something useful, like for instance, , to power a truck or something like that.
And then you have the transmission and storage and distribution. And so that is one line. And then there’s a second line, which is out of the digester. Not everything gets digested. So you need to deal with what comes out and that’s the digestate handling. Do I have it right as a picture at that stage?
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yes, exactly. You summarize the stages. Yeah, very well. Yeah. This is how we divide the data.
Antoine Walter: Without spoiling too much. The content of your study, what you show is that there’s one step, which is much more problematic than the others. And which one is it?
Semra Bakkaloglu: I maybe not much problematic, but the digestate stage emits more than the other stages. The reason maybe you wonder about what is the reason behind it, the digestate is a byproduct, as you say, the main. Line is the produce to biogas or biomethane when it comes to digestate. I think the people show the less attention to reduce their emissions and the main concern in my opinion, should be the design infrastructure or how to digestate is handled.
Maybe sometimes they just left in the facility in the open area. It depends how it’s handled, but this is the major emission stage.
Antoine Walter: So it is that sludge that comes out of the digester, which usually would then go to. post processing step, which might be a filter press, or, a way to remove a bit of the water and then get stored somewhere outside. And what you’re saying is that when it’s stored there, it emits methane
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yes, actually, and people also can be used to digest it as a soil fertilizer or composting if they do necessary processing because it has nutrients inside, but they have some standards that they can be used as a soil fertilizer or composting. They should be treated before.
Antoine Walter: I, if we take now all the steps together I think that the main finding of your study is that the total methane emissions. Double compared to what we thought they were, which leads me to a simple question. What was that basis? What did we estimate in the past and what was the study, which said that it was so much, and then you say it’s the double.
Semra Bakkaloglu: Actually we don’t. The data that assess the whole biomethane supply chain emissions, because this is the first study that we combine all the data and assess the whole chain emissions. But the international energy agency had reported the emissions as 9.1 megatons methane in 2021, which is the front production and the of fuels based on the emission factors given by the IPC C entire governmental tunnel on climate change.
And our calculations find that supply chain release up to 343 gram carbon dioxide equivalent per mega Joule power heating value, which may account for up to 18.5 megatons of methane annually. When we compare this value 18.5 to IPCC value 9.5. We can say that it could. Two times higher, but this is the highest amount that we estimated for the 18.5 megatons of methane annually.
And the differences is mainly from the super emitters, which means that small proportion of facilities or equipments. I emits disproportionally large methane and these large sources cannot be estimated by emission factors, but detected by the mobile measurements. I think that’s why the difference between because the international agency use the emission factors and also it is better to understand the data as well.
When we examine the data statistically. The methane emissions from biomethane and biogas supply chain is more likely to be between 6.4 and 7.8 teragram, according to 95 percentile and assuming a random distribution of supply chain around the world, we can expect 2.8 teragram methane year on average.
In average, it still be around. Three telegrams. But when we look at the, the highest emitters and assess the total emissions, that could be up to 18.5 megatons annually.
Antoine Walter: So , you are very politely saying super emitters. I’m a fully wrong. If I say bad pupil.
Semra Bakkaloglu: yeah. I mean, the super emitters May not stay in the, the facility for a long time. If people just monitor regularly their size and they can easily pick , the very large emissions when they are visiting the site and if they fix the leak, they can eliminate it to super emitters. But because I examined all the different literature data, More or less every facility has the, this kind of super emitters that disproportionally emits large methane.
It can be avoidable. If they just do the continuous mobile measuring to understand what is going on in the facility, they can easily observe and fix the leaks.
Antoine Walter: you mentioned how the COP 26 has looked a bit at these emissions of methane and looks most of the time at the fossil methane in your study, you’re comparing the emissions from the fossil methane and from the biomethane supply chain. And the biomethane supply chain seems to a bit much more than the fossil supply chain.
How do you explain that differe?
Semra Bakkaloglu: Actually it’s a bit worry about when it comes to biomethane compared to oil and gas. We compare according to production, normalized emission rate, and which means that the Metta emissions. Relative to the production rate of biomethane or natural gas generation. And the global biomethane production rate is smaller than oil and gas.
And the differences between the emission rates of biomethane and oil and gas supply chain could be due to variety of factors, including pure managed production facilities, lack of attention to biota industry, which result in the lower investment for modernization operation and monitor. As well as the employment of high skilled plant operators when compared to the oil and natural gas can cause the high emission rate from the biomethane PE facilities.
And because the oil and natural gas supply chain have been primarily operated by large companies for Medicaids. They have invested more in leak detection, repair. On the other hand, considering the growth in the biomethane generation, due to the national decarbonization strategies, more urgent effort efforts are also needed for the biomethane supply chain to address not only the methane emissions, but also the sustainability of biomethane.
Antoine Walter: I what you’re pointing at as well is that. In the past, you would put a digester on your wastewater treatment plant because you wanted to recover a bit of the methane and because it helps with reducing the sludge, but nowadays with the carbon concerns and with this increased focus on how we do we decarbonize our energy, how do we become more efficient?
There’s a bit more focus on that step, which means it’s no longer something which happens in the background. It becomes a. Full blown process, which means maybe there will be more attention given to that step. Maybe more skilled people and I’m can very easily say that. Because as I mentioned in the opening, I have been operating for six month, one of these digesters and it was the lowest skilled on the plant.
So clearly it was a sign that, that wasn’t the number one focus. So do you think that might be changing.
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yeah, I think so because the industry is growing and the number of the biomethane biogas plants has been growing in the UK since, the last decades, decarbonization strategies, I lead to people to get more. biomethane production and less natural, gas and oil usage. And if we have more, investment for this sector.
The automation of the systems, the continuous monitoring it’ll be much be better because we know that these emissions could be avoided. If you just fix the leaks, if you don’t vent it, your emissions directly to the atmosphere, or if you do you know, the incomplete flaring in the incomplete combustions that can all do be reduce this a.
With this basic strategies, we just need to think about on it more deeply. And these actions that we should to do it is more or less similar to how the emissions are reduced in natural, gas, supply chain. We just need to do, the continuous monitoring leak detection, repair more skilled workers, the automization of the systems.
Yeah, I believe that we can reduce those emissions and get benefit. Get much more benefit from the biomethane. Yeah.
Antoine Walter: You mentioned how you estimate in your worst case scenario, the emissions to be 18.5 megatons of methane that is a worldwide figure. Right?
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yes. Yes. This is the highest emission point.
Antoine Walter: How does that take into account all the places where. First wastewater is not treated at all, which is about 44% of the World where simply it’s not treated. So that carbon gets simply flown to a river. And then maybe it produces methane at some point from the river. But that’s hard to measure, I guess.
And also all the places where you would have maybe primary or secondary treatments, but you wouldn’t have a digester
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yeah. You mean that the methane is already emitted? Why. Obtain the biomethane. You mean the point of it? Yeah, I think this is very critical questions. We are also going to work on this point. In my future study, but some studies also suggested that treating the manure or sewage slide for the biomethane production could be a mitigation strategy because they emit methane even if not biomethane is produced and the emission rate is determined by how the sludge is stored.
When you come to, the sweet slide side and according to IPCC emission factors. For example, three months of storage for liquid raw sludge has a higher emission factor than the mesophilic anaerobic digestion. And the emissions from sewage sludge are unavoidable. If you just leave on that, because we know that waste water treatment plants emit also methane, , but we can avoid digestion emissions with leak and repair.
I came to the same point. Yeah. Even if you don’t produce the biomethane the system, the menu or switch large is still emit. But if we produce the biomethane, we can get renewable energy. And if we fix the leaks and emit less, we can totally get much more benefit from it.
Antoine Walter: So I get you right, it’s not about compar. The existing to the base, if we were not doing anything, it’s more saying that if already we are doing the effort of producing this biomethane, which we can valorize and really have that balance of carbon and the balance of energy, which is much better.
Thanks to that. It’s kind of stupid to just waste it because we are creating a leakage on the supply chain, which we could be mitigating with more process automation with more skilled people. improved facilities.
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yes. Yes, exactly. Also, I give an example for the, the three months of storage of raw liquid sludge emits, more than the anaerobic digesters. It means. They also even more than dynamic digestive, but it also depends, how you treat your sludge. I mean, how you get sludge from your wastewater treatment then is it from the primary treatment or secondary treatment and how you store your sludge?
Antoine Walter: in your study, you look at that value chain and you look at various steps and you’re comparing on the biogas upgrading some different technologies. And you say that one, we recommend that one we would recommend avoiding. Why did you look at that specific step? And did you also look at other steps?
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yeah, actually in the paper. Yeah, we discussed the most commonly used biogas upgrading processes in industry, such as the pressure swing absorption, water and chemical scrubbing and membrane and chemical absorption. The emission data were collected from the literature based on mobile emission data, and these processes are you.
Operating in the industry and the other processes such as biogenic, upgrading cyogenic separation and Al alcohol with regeneration are mainly lab based studies. It’s very difficult to review them without actually industrial measurement data. We try to understand how the data is changing because we have the more data on the upgrading processes.
It allows us to get general. Conclusion that we should avoid, the water scrubbers and pressure swing adsorption and for the other production stages, when it comes to biogas generation. There are different methods used in the anaerobic digester. One is the mesophilic and thermophilic anaerobic digesters, but the lack of emission measurement data makes it’s difficult to draw any broad conclusion from them.
And also for the feedstock stage, there is not enough information to generalize the funding evaluation to different feedstock types, such as with sludge agricultural waste or food waste data. Until right now is mainly from the agricultural waste from the European biogas plants.
If you have the data, you can evaluate how the emissions are changing with different technology, with different feedstock.
Antoine Walter: so it’s a matter of data, which is what I was fearing. Because then there’s not much you can do as long as you don’t have the data, because what I would’ve been curious is that you’re based in the UK and on that microphone, I was discussing with Eirik Fadnes. He’s the CEO of CAMBI and CAMBI is the world leader in the terminal hydrolysis of sludge as a pre-treatment for an anaerobic digestion. And on one hand it’s increasing the biogas production. But on the other hand, it’s also reducing the biosolids at the outlet.
So I would expect that with less biosolids at the outlet, which are a bit more, let me use layman terms, dead cells than you would have normally at the outlet of a digester probably. That’s a wild guess you would have less emissions of methane in that additional stage where the sludge is stored somewhere outside.
So I was wondering if you might have the data there that might be an argument to say, maybe we should look for. Higher efficiency. Digester is because the more methane is produced in the digester. The less potential there is for leakage to happen at the subsequent stage. But if I get you rights, you don’t have data to, to back it or to infirm it by the way, because you don’t have data on that step.
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yeah. Sounds exciting. Yeah. It’s nice to learn that you can increase the biomethane generation bio or, and get less bio solid. Which is quite interesting, it’s it also, it will be nice to see how the emissions are coming from that process. And maybe there, there is no emissions, it is possible without any emissions that operate the unit.
Yeah.
Antoine Walter: So you mentioned how you are missing some data on the other part of the process. Do you have a plan to acquire that data one way or the other to, continue and to build on your existing studies?
Semra Bakkaloglu: Actually, I’m not working mobile based in my post-doc study right now, but I’m still catching the literature. What other. The researchers are doing on it. And yeah, more data will be very helpful to understand the emission patterns. And we synthesized, I told you the emissions, meaning from the European agricultural biogas plans for the data available to any resolution, the most detailed measurement studies from.
Various type of biogas and biomethane plants and other countries are also required. We now focusing on the super emitters within the supply chain to better understand how to reduce them using the best available technologies. Yeah.
Antoine Walter: When you say super emitters again, which I would call the bad guys. Is it like a Pareto law? Like they would emit 80% of of the total or how can we figure out the, those bad pupils?
Semra Bakkaloglu: In the paper, we estimated that, the top five percentage of these emissions can cause the 62 percentage of total emissions, which is quite high. If we just fix this super emitters we directly to reduce our emissions by 60%. They can easily detect it and they can easily be fixed.
We came to the same point, continuous monitoring detection, repair system. And this is why the super emitters are the critical and it can come from, the. feedstock. It can come from the pressure relief valves. It can come from the open digestate storage because they are available in the different stages across supply chain.
It’s better to know where they come from
Antoine Walter: and if you are working with those super emitters, are they aware that they are super emitters?
Semra Bakkaloglu: You mean for the site basic for the site facilities, they aware I can’t say for this paper, but my previous PhD paper, when we are in the site visit in one of the biogas plants in the UK and we chat with the operators and they told us that they are aware. They just, fix the methane leaks coming from the top of one of the process unit.
And after they found it, they fixed it. and they don’t know how frequent is coming, how long the super emitter emitted, because they just, realize it when they did the visit survey, that’s why we advised them to look at their emissions continuously.
Antoine Walter: That’s the origin of many of the scary stories we tell to the children about ghosts and things like that. It’s that people were not going that often to, to the graveyards and when they went there and there were some methane emissions, which could catch fire because yeah, bodies are organic matter and that’s a bit.
How we have all these legends going around. So I could imagine that if you just sorry for this stupid analogy, but if you never visit your plants, then you might be surprised by what you find when you have a deeper look to it. For all the wastewater professionals listening to that, would you have an advice to limit their emissions and to make sure they are in the good pupils part of your graph and statistics.
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yeah, Axel. When comes to wastewater professions and regulations, they are all aware that waste water treatment can also emit methane and covering the waste water treatment unit and collecting. The gas in the line and sending to the gas storage can be used in the facility. I think which is important point and the treatment of sewage sludge is also another point.
An Arabic digestion will be the advisor option for treating the sewage sludge and optaining the energy benefits from it. If the emissions from the facility, of course can be minimized.
Antoine Walter: you have statistics as to how much of the sludge is currently going through a digester and how much is just disposed?
Semra Bakkaloglu: No, but it’s a very interesting questions. I will look at it after our conversation. Yeah. It’s important in this study, we eliminated the wastewater emissions. Waste water treatment plans. If they don’t publish how much the biogas or biomethane is produced from the facility, because we need to make all the units in the same line to compare apple, to apple.
If you don’t know how much biogas or biomethane is produced from the facility. It doesn’t make us for us, the, how much Ising because we need to compare how much is produced and how much is released. But I will look at that. I don’t know the statistics, but it’s quite interesting to see how the emissions is changing because in my next study I will look at the Cofactors of the TTA, which means that that if the feedstock is not used for the biomethane generation, what would be the emissions? It would nice to see the comparison between them.
Antoine Walter: So that means that you will be building that reference to know how much would be the emissions if we don’t do anything. And so you have a good comparison to look at how much it is when you do it with a digestion, but maybe not with the proper digestion or the proper supply chain.
Semra Bakkaloglu: If indeed the feedstock is produced at all, in that case, we need to compare to understand how the whole life cycle emissions of waste and byproducts of biomethane production is.
Antoine Walter: And when do you expect to have that sequel study finished?
Semra Bakkaloglu: , I’m working on it. I try to finish as soon as possible because I’m also doing the other studies as well, but it’s very interesting. It’ll be very interesting study because I’m elevating to different scenarios. If you don’t the fit stuck with it in the facility or.
Use as a soil fertilizer, just spread on the land, what would be if you get electricity from renewables, rather than the biomethane and et cetera.
Antoine Walter: when you were diving into all this data, what was your feeling about the importance of carbon topics when it comes to all that waste water industry? Is it something which appeared to be a hot topic or were people surprised you were even looking at.
Semra Bakkaloglu: if we are meet to meet our net remission target by 2050, the carbon emissions and the energy efficiency should be also waited in the wastewater sector as well. The water industry must its part reduce its carbon footprint. Water is usually treated before it is used. And again, before it returned to the environment and it is pumped and compressed in order to reach our homes and all these activities require energy.
And as a result, greenhouse gases and the water industry accounts for 0.8 percentage of annual UK greenhouse gas. However, the emissions caused by heating water in their home. Raise these figures to 5.5 percentage. And because the waste, the water industry wastes can be used as a renewable energy sources.
And I think water companies may merge with energy companies and the technology suppliers to form more effective partnership for reducing emissions. And you. Successful implementing low carbon supply side solutions and expanding water demand management activities can now be begin the process of transitioning to a lower carbon water industry.
Antoine Walter: If you want to dive deeper into that topic. I had a conversation on that microphone with Maria Manidaki from Mott McDonald, looking at the carbon approaches from the water sector in the UK, which is by many aspects. Leading the way for the water industry globally. So I guess you’re at the epicenter of where it’s happening right now.
So I guess that’s that’s the right time, right place to be conducing, the studies you’re conducing. Semra, it’s been a pleasure to have , that deep dive with you. Will you come back, when you have the results of your sequel study? Because I’m really interested in the comparison between the existing And what it could be, I mean, between not treated and treating. So I’m, you have an open pass to, to come back on that microphone whenever you’re ready.
Semra Bakkaloglu: Thank you. Yeah.
Antoine Walter: and to round off this this interview, I propose you to switch to the Rapid Fire questions.
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yep.
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Rapid fire questions:
Antoine Walter: So in that last section I raise you short questions, which aim for short answers, but don’t worry. I’m not cutting the microphone. If you need a bit more time to explain. My first question is what is the most exciting project you’ve been working on and why?
Semra Bakkaloglu: Actually all of my projects have been very exciting for me because. I have been learning new things, exploring new ideas and alerting the things from different angles. And it’s very hard to choose the most exciting ones. Sorry.
Antoine Walter: No problem. Can you name one thing that you’ve learned the hard way?
Semra Bakkaloglu: Personally. Stop working on annual list. I have always something in my mind that I want to do as soon as possible, but I’m training myself to stop working on my annual list.
Antoine Walter: Is there something that you’re doing today in your job that you will not be doing in 10?
Semra Bakkaloglu: In the next 10 years, I may not be working on methane emissions from biomethane supply chain as they will be fixed and repaired. And there will be no emissions anymore.
Antoine Walter: I love the optimist. I really love the optimist, so that’s great.
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yes. Yeah. Just it’s hope. Yeah. Less finger crossed. Yeah. The industry, people are listening, us, reading our papers and the maintain means the money, the profit for them.
If they fix their emissions, bought us win, win, we can win. Yeah. They can get more money. We can get less emissions. Everything will be nice.
Antoine Walter: Yeah, it sounds like a win, win, win, win, win. Yeah.
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yeah, exactly.
Antoine Walter: What is the trend to watch out for in the water sector?
Semra Bakkaloglu: I can say that flooding for the UK and the climate change will be severely affected the water sector. And studies says that there is a 10 percentage chance of a catastrophic flood happening in England within the next two decades.
Antoine Walter: you were a word political leader, what would be your first action to influence the fate of the words? What are challenge?
Semra Bakkaloglu: I think the worst biggest problem will be water scarce in the near feature. And if I were a world political leader, my first action would be limit the water usage most likely in the agricultural sector, which consumes 70 percentage of all water. And. I would advocate for the use of reclaim water in the agriculture sector.
Yeah.
Antoine Walter: Again, that sounds like a good program. So I would vote for you.
Semra Bakkaloglu: thank you.
Antoine Walter: And my last question is, would you have someone to recommend me that I should definitely invite as soon as possible on that micro.
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yeah, I can invite my colleague from my master’s study. Dr. UL. He is the scientist at university of may in us and his project was funded by NASA last week, which is about the use of Nana bubbles for water treatment in space. I think sun is very exciting. It might
Antoine Walter: It sounds really exciting. Indeed.
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
Antoine Walter: for the recommendation. And again, Semra, thanks all for all the insight you shared. For everyone listening to this, I’ll put of course the link to your paper in the show notes. So I recommend having a read because it’s really interesting. You might even discover what’s the Monte Carlo approach is if you’re like me a muggle and and aside from that, it’s really interesting to to read and to.
That’s state of the art. I would say about what we know right now about the biomethane emissions. If people want to follow up with you, where should I redirect them the best?
Semra Bakkaloglu: I believe the best way to follow me is through my LinkedIn or Twitter accounts. And thank you for this fascinating conversation as well. I hope the listener benefits from the today discussion.
Antoine Walter: I’m sure. I’m sure they did.
Semra Bakkaloglu: Yeah. Thank you!
