By Marcus Gillette, Biomass Magazine.
Driving vehicles that run on natural gas reduces emissions and allows us to breathe cleaner air. But what many don’t realize is that this is rapidly becoming truer through the increasing use of renewable natural gas in North America’s natural gas vehicle (NGV) infrastructure.
Renewable natural gas (RNG) is derived from the methane that emits from organic waste as it decomposes. This methane is captured at agricultural facilities, landfills, wastewater treatment plants, and separated municipal solid waste digesters, and then cleaned in a treatment process to produce a product indistinguishable from natural gas. The resulting biomethane, or RNG, is then either injected into natural gas pipelines, compressed or liquefied to be used as transportation fuel in the form of renewable compressed natural gas (CNG) or renewable liquefied natural gas (LNG).