The desire to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases and enhance the sustainability of the energy supply has resulted in a drive towards increasing the use of renewable fuels. Biofuels are enjoying much attention in this respect, and are being (re)introduced as fuels for both transportation and stationary energy conversion. Given the penetration of natural gas in power generation, industrial, commercial and residential markets in the US and Europe, using the natural gas infrastructure to deliver biogases is an attractive means of ensuring a high penetration of renewable energy in all aspects of end use. At the same time, the development of "unconventional" gas sources offers potential gas supplies in the US and Europe for perhaps a century. However, many of these "new" gases contain compounds that are not ordinarily present in natural gas, and these chemical species can have adverse effects on the integrity of the infrastructure, the safety and performance of end-use equipment, and even on the health of the end user. In the companion paper in these proceedings, we discuss the consequences of an impurity specific to biogases, siloxanes. Here we give an overview of the various species and their impact on the different components of the gas chain, and then focus on combustion aspects that arise when wishing to utilize these gases.
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