Biomethane currently supplies just 1% of UK gas demand. Could it reach 30% by 2050? Philipp Lukas, founder and CEO of Future Biogas, makes the case.

The UK uses around 700 terawatt hours of gas every year. Even as electrification reduces that to 150–250 TWh by 2050, the gas that remains will be harder than ever to replace. Industrial heat, steel, glass, shipping, aviation.

Biomethane, produced from organic waste and agricultural byproducts through anaerobic digestion, could supply 50–60 TWh of that demand. That's roughly 10 times what the UK produces today.

In this episode of Transmission, Ed speaks with Philipp Lukas, CEO of Future Biogas. Philipp explains how the technology works, why the gas grid is the biggest battery in the country, and why turning it off would be a mistake.

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

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Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Y1pWt2-cKi4

Chapters

0:00 Introduction — the gas grid as a clean energy asset

1:20 What everyone gets wrong about biogas

2:00 How anaerobic digestion works (the basics)

8:00 Ranking the top uses of biomethane

10:00 The price gap: natural gas vs. biomethane today

15:00 The future of the UK gas grid — 700 TWh to 200 TWh

18:00 How much could biomethane supply by 2050?

25:00 Why the gas grid won’t be switched off

29:00 Dunkelflaute and the case for backup gas

33:00 Feedstocks: sewage, food waste, animal manure, energy crops

37:00 Biogas vs. ethanol: land use and the rotation argument

40:00 How biogas plants actually work (reliability, engineering)

43:00 The subsidy journey and the obligation model

47:00 Closing