Why Care More

The transition to a sustainable society is a major challenge for the Netherlands: the gas extraction in Groningen that will be discontinued due to the earthquakes it causes, climate goals to reduce CO2 emissions on the one hand and a growth in demand and supply of electricity in society on the other.

Project description

Green gas, biogas that has been made suitable for the Dutch gas network, can play a major role in the energy transition, provided that sufficient green gas is produced. An urgent challenge to which the project Why Care More (Waste, Hydrogen and Carbon Dioxide: improved Reactors and Micro-organisms for Renewable Energy applications) will contribute.

The research will be integrated in at least five different curricula of the Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen at bachelor's and master's level. In addition to the Hanze University of Applied Sciences, various partners are involved in the project, namely the University of Groningen, New Energy Coalition, GasTerra, province of Drenthe, BioclearEarth, DMT Environmental Technology and ENKI Energy. The parties themselves also contribute to the research: the total size of the project is 1.5 million euros.

Research question

In view of the expected pressure on biomass, the yield of green gas from biomass fermentation, which is difficult to process, must be increased.  In this project, research is being done into a more efficient use of biomass, which, at present, is still difficult to process.

Aim

With the project, the research group contributes to the development of a suitable infrastructure for research and education on the production of green grass from biomass. Through this research, all parties would like to contribute to a more efficient use of biomass that is still difficult to process.