Energy potential of anaerobic digestion of solid wastes generated in the Russian Federation

The well known use of the microbiological process of anaerobic digestion (AD) to generate biogas (mixture of methane and carbon dioxide) is now widely implemented for the production of renewable energy worldwide. In Russia, however, this is not the case despite huge amounts of solid organic wastes (SOW) suitable for AD. This paper firstly inventories major flows of SOW from various sectors of the national economy (agriculture, industry, households etc) and estimates their biogas potential. Special attention is put on existing bottlenecks and barriers to implementation of biogas technology given the Russian socio-economic conditions.