RNG NEWS
Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.Court Upholds Colorado's Renewable Portfolio Standard
By Tripp Baltz, Bloomberg BNA.
A federal appeals court has rejected a challenge to Colorado's renewable portfolio standard, finding that the standard does not disproportionately harm out-of-state businesses.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld a lower court ruling against the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (EELI), which argued that Colorado's renewable portfolio standard means that some out-of-state coal producers will lose business with out-of-state utilities who feed power onto an interconnected grid serving 11 Western states, Canada and Mexico.
The institute had argued that, because electricity can go anywhere on the grid and come from anywhere on the grid, and because Colorado is a net importer of electricity, the out-of-state coal producers would be harmed, the court noted.
Clean energy project set for Big Run Landfill
By The Independent Online.
Plans are under way to develop a new, state-of-the-art clean energy facility at Big Run Landfill that will convert gas produced at the landfill into renewable natural gas, EnviroSolutions (ESI), owner of Big Run, according to a press release.announced Tuesday.
Enerdyne Power Systems, a company that specializes in utilizing landfill gas (LFG) as a renewable fuel source, will work with ESI to construct the multi-million dollar facility that, at the landfill’s current gas collection rate, will produce enough natural gas to heat approximately 10,000 homes and save the annual equivalent CO2 emissions of 47 million gallons of gasoline.
Gas captured by Big Run’s landfill gas collection system will be directed to a new, onsite gas plant where it will be processed, treated and upgraded to high BTU, pipeline-quality natural gas.
California Lawmakers Stretch Limits of Greenhouse Gas Proceeds
By James Nash, Bloomberg.
California lawmakers are finding it may not be so easy to spend more than $2.9 billion in proceeds from auctioning greenhouse gas credits in the state’s landmark cap-and-trade market.
Buoyed by higher revenue estimates from selling pollution permits to companies, Democratic leaders of the Senate and Assembly are looking to pump money into communities most affected by toxins, improve the efficiency of farms and even ward off mosquitoes.
Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has other plans for some of that carbon-auction revenue. Businesses say the money should help companies that pay for the credits compete with those in states that don’t charge polluters. And California’s fiscal analyst says some of those proposed uses may not even be legal.
Refuse Company Rolls Out CNG Trucks in Quebec
By NGT News.
On Monday, representatives from Sani-Estrie Inc., Gaz Metro and its subsidiary Gaz Metro Transport Solutions (GMTS) joined Magog, Quebec, Mayor Vicki May Hamm to announce the arrival of new dump trucks powered exclusively by compressed natural gas (CNG).
The City of Magog has contracted Sani-Estrie to take care of its household waste removal. The Sherbrooke, Quebec-based family business currently boasts nine CNG trucks, five of which will be used for waste collection in Magog.
To facilitate fuel supply, GMTS provided a compression station on Sani-Estrie's Sherbrooke site. The new fleet, now in operation, has been refueling through the Gaz Metro network since July 1.
Start-up turns methane from manure into eco-friendly plastic
By Andrew Khouri, The Los Angeles Times.
What if you could pluck pollution out of the air — like the methane gas emitted from cow manure — and create plastics?
Scientists have long known it was possible to use climate-changing methane, rather than oil or natural gas, to make water bottles, Tupperware and other plastics. But they couldn't do it cheaply enough to make the technology commercially viable.
Now, a small Costa Mesa company says it's cracked the code. It's lined up contracts with Dell, L'Oreal and other major corporations to supply the plastic for packaging, containers and chairs from potent methane that would've instead seeped into the atmosphere. Newlight Technologies Chief Executive Mark Herrema claims his company can make plastics cheaper than traditional alternatives, and he hopes to transform the plastic industry and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
A Newlight Technologies worker watches an extruder roll out strands of melted pellets for testing. (Gina Ferazzi, Los Angeles Times)
"We don't think you can have a green impact without having an economic impact," Herrema said. "If you can have the market drive [a solution] what could be more powerful?"
Biofuels can be a bigger part of green energy
By Coalition For Renewable Natural Gas, The Sacramento Bee.
Despite California’s leadership in green energy promotion, our state is a woefully lopsided net importer of clean biofuels.
State lawmakers have a golden opportunity to correct this unfortunate paradox by negotiating a follow-up budget provision that invests some of the state’s cap-and-trade revenues in California-produced biofuels. Without impacting the general fund, such a move would cut air pollution, combat climate change, treat our petroleum addiction, improve public health and create green jobs in California’s economically depressed inland communities.
US EPA unveils new data for RIN sales
By Platts.
The US Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday released, for the first time, data aggregated by the type of organization selling or holding the credits used to demonstrate compliance with the Renewable Fuel Standard.
EPA said the new aggregated data for these credits, or Renewable Identification Numbers, will increase transparency of the RIN market under the RFS program.
Study: even with high LDV electrification, low-carbon biofuels will be necessary to meet 80% GHG reduction target
By Green Car Congress.
A study by researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Michigan State University colleague has concluded that even with a relatively high rate of electrification of the US light-duty fleet (40% of vehicle miles traveled and 26% by fuel), an 80% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050 relative to 1990 can only be achieved with significant quantities of low-carbon liquid fuel. The paper is published in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology.
For the study, the researchers benchmarked 27 scenarios against a 50% petroleum-reduction target and an 80% GHG-reduction target. They found that with high rates of electrification (40% of miles traveled) the petroleum-reduction benchmark could be satisfied, even with high travel demand growth. The same highly electrified scenarios, however, could not satisfy 80% GHG-reduction targets, even assuming 80% decarbonized electricity and no growth in travel demand.
California's push for cleaner buses could edge out natural gas
By Nichola Groom, Thomson-Reuters.
Fifteen years ago, California led the way to cleaner transit buses with strict tailpipe emissions standards that effectively ushered out diesel as the primary fuel for buses in the state and replaced it with natural gas.
Now, California is poised once again to take the lead, this time by mandating a switch to so-called "zero-emission" buses by 2040.
The new push by California's powerful Air Resources Board (CARB) has the potential to marginalize natural gas as a bus fuel in the same way its adoption once marginalized diesel.
In response, the California Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition has proposed expanding the definition of "zero-emission vehicles" to include not just electric buses, but also those powered by so-called "renewable natural gas," which is produced from cow manure or decomposing organic matter in landfills.
ACORE Releases Public Policy Insights and Recommendations for Renewable Energy
By Kevin Haley, ACORE for Co-Generation & On-Site Power Generation Magazine.
As the Obama administration announces a 20 percent national goal for renewable electricity generation by 2030, today the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE) is releasing a public policy insights package for lawmakers and regulators. The package consists of two reports detailing sector recommendations for public officials working on renewable energy policy, and the impact of various policy scenarios on private sector investment in renewables.
"From Washington, D.C. to the 50 state capitals, energy policy is a matter of critical importance," said Dan Reicher, interim President and CEO of ACORE and Executive Director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy & Finance at Stanford University. "With the right policies in place, the White House's announcement yesterday seeking 20 percent renewable electricity by 2030 is achievable. However, the question remains whether Congress and state lawmakers will back the impressive progress of the American clean energy industry over the last several years."
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