RNG NEWS
Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.SWACO hires Battelle to craft solid waste diversion plan
By Carrie Ghose, Columbus Business First.
The Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohiohas hired Battelle for a $57,000 first phase of a study that could add another $500,000 to identify strategies and technology to turn 1 million tons of waste a year into a valuable commodity instead of burying it in the Franklin County landfill.
Senate fails to override Obama’s Keystone XL veto
By Argus Media.
The Republican-controlled US Senate today failed to override President Barack Obama's veto of a bill to authorize construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
The Senate voted 62-37 to override the veto, four votes shy of the two-thirds majority of those voting needed for passage. That means Congress' effort to override Obama's veto is dead.
The bill would have enabled Canadian midstream company TransCanada to build its proposed $8bn, 830,000 b/d Keystone XL pipeline without further regulatory scrutiny. The project would transport crude from Alberta's oil sands and the Bakken formation to the US midcontinent, where it would link up with an existing pipeline infrastructure feeding refineries along the US Gulf coast.
Obama vetoed the bill on 24 February.
Ontario landfill gas project celebrates milestone
By Walker Environmental Group, for Biomass Magazine.
Walker Environmental Group is celebrating a significant milestone in its efforts to reduce carbon emissions and help Ontario tackle climate change. In Thorold, Ontario, WEG's landfill gas utilization partnership company has eliminated the need for more than 200 million cubic meters of natural gas since 2002 by providing landfill gas to nearby Resolute Forest Products, where 100 percent recycled newsprint is manufactured. The energy from the landfill gas, which would otherwise have been wasted, is equivalent to the natural gas used by approximately 80,000 Ontario homes.
State’s Republicans should stay true to party’s environmental roots
By Charles F. Bass, Concord Monitor.
As a former member of the New Hampshire House and Senate, I have watched with dismay efforts undertaken by Republican legislators to roll back the laws that were passed to encourage energy diversity and native energy production in our state. I am equally saddened by efforts to withdraw from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. These efforts are neither good policy nor consistent with traditional Republican values.
I would remind my fellow Republicans that it was under our leadership that the White Mountain National Forest was established. John H. Sununu was governor when the Land Conservation Investment Program was established. Governor Judd Gregg doubled the size of the LCIP program, and authored the Rivers Protection and Shoreline Protection acts. And at the federal level over the last 100 years, almost all major environmental initiatives, including the creation of the EPA, occurred under Republican presidents.
Indeed the very words “conservation” and “conservative” share the same derivation. Good environmental and energy policy should be a core conservative value.
Rollback of renewable-energy standards dies in Colorado Legislature
By Ed Sealover, Denver Business Journal.
An effort to roll back Colorado's renewable energy standard in the state Legislature died Monday in a House of Representatives committee.
Democrats on the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee voted on a party line over Republican objections to kill Senate Bill 44.
Food waste is becoming serious economic and environmental issue
By Ron Nixon, New York Times.
With millions of U.S. households struggling to have enough to eat, and millions of tons of food being tossed in the garbage, food waste is increasingly being seen as a serious environmental and economic issue.
A report released Wednesday shows that about 60 million metric tons of food is wasted a year in the United States, with an estimated value of $162 billion. About 32 million metric tons of it end up in municipal landfills, at a cost of about $1.5 billion a year to local governments.
The problem is not limited to the United States.
RGGI supporters keep eye on N.H. Legislature
By Craig Robert Brown, Sea Coast Online.
A series of bills that would repeal the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and Renewable Portfolio Standard are going before the New Hampshire House and Senate.
The Republican-led committee on Feb. 5 voted to amend House Bill 208 presented by state Rep. Richard Barry, R-Merrimack, who originally brought the same concept to the table in 2011 and again in 2012. The amendment would keep New Hampshire in RGGI, but rebate all RGGI auction proceeds to ratepayers instead of using part of the rebates, as it currently does, to invest in low-income and municipal energy efficiency projects.
Senators' bill cuts corn ethanol from Renewable Fuel Standard
By Farm Futures.
Two U.S. Senators are again working up a bill to eliminate corn ethanol mandates in the Renewable Fuel Standard.
Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., rolled out the bill proposed bill, The Toomey-Feinstein Corn Ethanol Mandate Elimination Act of 2015, this week. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., is also a cosponsor of the measure.
The RFS requires annual increases in the amount of renewable fuel that must be blended into the total volume of gasoline in the U.S. The Senators say that the mandate for corn ethanol, however, drives up corn prices and the cost of both food products made from corn and meat produced using corn as feed.
EPA: More than 4 million cellulosic RINs generated in January
By Erin Voegele, Ethanol Producer Magazine.
The U.S. EPA has published renewable identification number (RIN) generation data for January, reporting that nearly 1.38 billion RINs were generated during the month.
More than 4.07 million D3 cellulosic biofuel RINs were generated during in January, including 114,261 for ethanol, 1.43 million for renewable compressed natural gas and 2.53 million for renewable liquefied natural gas. All 4.07 million D3 cellulosic biofuel RINs were generated by domestic producers. No D7 cellulosic diesel RINs were generated during the month.
Solar Renewable Energy Projects Provide Second Lives for Landfills
By Megan Greenwalt, Waste360.
Renewable energy projects, particularly those using solar technology, have been on the rise, helping to empower municipalities across the country.
In May 2014, Casella Waste Systems Inc. along with two solar energy firms launched a solar power project at Casella’s Coventry, Vt., landfill. A solar farm at the Victorville Sanitary Landfill in San Bernardino County, Calif., opened in January, and just this month, New Jersey’s Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G) put two new landfill solar farms in service. By developing solar energy projects at closed or capped landfills, companies are getting new life out of otherwise unusable land.
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