Abstract
This paper discusses the history and present status of different categories of biogas production in China, most of which are classified into rural household production, agriculture-based engineering production, and industry-based engineering production. To evaluate the future biogas production of China, five models including the Hubbert model, the Weibull model, the generalized Weng model, the H–C–Z model, and the Grey model are applied to analyze and forecast the biogas production of each province and the entire country. It is proved that those models which originated from oil research can also be applied to other energy sources. The simulation results reveal that China’s total biogas production is unlikely to keep on a fast-growing trend in the next few years, mainly due to a recent decrease in rural household production, and this greatly differs from the previous goal set by the official department. In addition, China’s biogas production will present a more uneven pattern among regions in the future. This paper will give preliminary explanation for the regional difference of the three biogas sectors and propose some recommendations for instituting corresponding policies and strategies to promote the development of the biogas industry in China.
Highlights
When faced with a global energy crisis, we have seen considerable efforts and progress in exploring effective and sustainable energy during recent years
By using the same approach in simulating household biogas production, we find that generalized Weng model is still a good choice for simulating agriculture-based engineering biogas production, with the best value of mean absolute error (MAE) (7.04E?03), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) (0.1913), root-mean square error (RMSE) (1.26E?04), and R-squared (0.9922) when calculating total biogas production; likewise, the Hubbert model is most suitable to simulate industry-based engineering biogas production, with the most satisfactory values of MAE (6.15E?03), MAPE (0.3137), RMSE (8.65E?03), and R-squared (0.7516) for evaluating national biogas production
This research implies that by the year 2020 the amount of biogas production will probably decrease to 10 Giga cubic meters for the household sector, yet grow to about three Giga cubic meters for engineering projects
Summary
When faced with a global energy crisis, we have seen considerable efforts and progress in exploring effective and sustainable energy during recent years. Among different types of energy, biogas is regarded as an important and versatile one that is a sustainable fuel source for producing electricity, heat, or driving power, but it has multiple advantages in environment improvement, greenhouse gas reduction, carbon capture, and fertilizer production, even social benefits like cost and labor saving in some cases (Cheng et al 2011; Barnhart 2013; Gosens et al 2013; Zhang et al 2013). Biogas is widely used in both developed and developing countries nowadays. Due to different natural resource endowments, climate conditions, technologies and industrialization development levels, and socioeconomic status, the production of biogas varies among different cases. The countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
