Compressed Biogas A Viable Solution for Delhi's Air Pollution Woes

Delhi's air pollution problem is really bad, and a new report suggests a way to tackle it: turning farm waste into clean fuel.  This could help with both the smoke from burning fields and the exhaust from cars.  The report from Nomura Research Institute points out that while cars are responsible for 20% of Delhi's pollution in the summer and field burning adds another 16%, these numbers jump to 30% and 23%, respectively, in the winter.  And during the worst of the burning season, the smoke from fields can account for over 30% of the pollution!  Basically, Delhi's air gets polluted by a mix of things: cars, construction, burning fields, and factories.

The report thinks compressed biogas, or CBG, could be a game-changer.  A plant that makes 10 tons of CBG daily needs about 90 tons of rice straw.  Instead of burning that straw and polluting the air, we could use it to make clean fuel.  This would prevent about 270 kilos of nasty particulate matter from entering the air every single day.  It's estimated that a massive 67% of the pollution from burning fields in Punjab and Haryana blows straight into Delhi, turning the area into a "gas chamber" every winter.

Think about it: just one CBG plant producing 10 tons of CBG a day could stop 11,000 to 12,000 kilos of particulate matter from polluting the air each year.  That's like taking 150,000 to 175,000 petrol cars off the road and replacing them with electric vehicles! That would make a huge difference in how clean and healthy Delhi's air is.