Europe’s carbon dioxide (CO2) supply remains exposed to disruption due to its reliance on fossil-linked production, with recent tensions in the Middle East affecting global energy flows reinforcing concerns over supply chain resilience.
This has prompted a shift to biogenic sources from anaerobic digestion (AD) as a more resilient alternative.
Speaking during a recent gasworld webinar, David Hurren, CEO and Director at DAH Renewable Consultancy, pointed to the continued reliance on fossil-linked production, particularly ammonia, as a core weakness in the market.
“Fossil-led fuel supplies … particularly leaning in Europe on ammonia … have been fragile at times,” he said, noting that around 40% to 45% of European CO2 is tied to that source.
That fragility has already prompted intervention. The UK Government recently instructed producers to maintain CO2 output to ensure supply, underlining concerns about the reliability of the current system.
Against this backdrop, AD-derived CO2 is a more distributed and potentially less exposed source. In the UK, around 100,000 to 130,000 tonnes of CO2 is currently produced from AD, compared with roughly 250,000 tonnes of imported fossil-based supply.
“What we’re seeing now is that biogenic CO2, coming from AD, is becoming an increasingly important part of that story,” said Hurren.
The appeal lies in its structure. Unlike large, centralised ammonia plants, AD facilities are spread across regions, reducing the risk of single-point failures and decoupling supply from fertiliser market dynamics.
“It’s local. It doesn’t fall to those [global shocks]… that diversified spread is just more resilient,” he added.
The potential scale is also substantial. The UK has set ambitions to produce around 50 TWh of biomethane by 2030, which could yield approximately six million tonnes of CO2. At a European level, biomethane targets could translate into 45 to 50 million tonnes of biogenic CO2.
“That is way above the amounts that have been used by the industrial gas sector,” said Hurren.
However, while the long-term potential is clear, the sector is not yet mature. Industry discussions are increasing, but deployment remains at an earlier stage, with questions around scaling, timing, and market development still unresolved.
“There’s more and more conversations… but [it’s about] how do we move forward? How do we scale forward and what’s the timing for it,” he said.
Hurren also pointed to structural inefficiencies in the current system, noting that CO2 production is often tied to processes designed primarily for other outputs.
“We’re subsidising a plant to run for one molecule, when actually we could be producing it quite easily from other work,” he said, highlighting the case for integrating CO2 recovery into broader bioenergy systems.
