RNG NEWS
Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.Renewable Natural Gas Champion Joanna Underwood Honored by NGVA
By Fuel Marketer News.
Joanna Underwood, president of the non-profit Energy Vision, was honored on Sept. 15 with a lifetime achievement award from NGVAmerica, a national organization promoting natural gas as a clean, domestic, safe and abundant transportation fuel. A pioneering figure in the environmental movement since the early 1970s, Underwood was an early champion of natural gas as an alternative vehicle fuel. In recent years, she has been a prominent advocate of the renewable form of natural gas (RNG) made from organic waste.
The NGV Achievement Awards recognize recipients for “outstanding leadership, vision and innovation” in advancing natural gas as a transportation fuel. Award winners are selected from nominations submitted by the NGVA membership, which consists of more than 230 companies, environmental groups, and government organizations. At the awards ceremony in Denver today, more than 500 natural gas industry leaders gathered from across the U.S. to honor this year’s winners.
“It’s very gratifying to be recognized by this distinguished group,” said Underwood. “And it’s heartening to see from this gathering how robust the natural gas vehicle field has become. It wasn’t so long ago that natural gas vehicles were a newly minted alternative concept. Today, they’re becoming mainstream, and natural gas is evolving into a renewable, scalable transportation fuel.”
Greenlane Biogas partners with CR&R on Californian AD project
By Bioenergy Insight.
Greenlane Biogas, a global supplier of integrated biogas upgrading solutions, has received a contract to provide engineering services to CR&R Waste & Recycling for its biogas-to-renewable natural gas (RNG) project in Perris, California.
Greenlance will detail a design solution to make the RNG produced at the CR&R facility conform to the Californian Rule 30 requirements for injection into pipelines.
Rule 30 is a guideline created by the Californian state utilities specifying the pipeline gas quality RNG producers must meet in order for RNG to be received and distributed.
Energy Department Announces $70 Million for Innovation Institute on Smart Manufacturing
By Energy.gov.
September 16, WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the Department of Energy is announcing up to $70 million in funding for the next Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute, which will be focused on smart manufacturing. With this investment, the Department aims to support research and development advancements that can reduce the cost of deployment for technologies such as advanced sensors, controls, platforms, and modeling for manufacturing by as much as 50 percent. As part of President Obama’s National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) institutes, the institute will also demonstrate these technologies in manufacturing processes with a goal to increase energy efficiency by at least 15 percent and improve energy productivity by at least 50 percent. With increased deployment and reduced costs, these SMART technologies can transform American manufacturing, enabling businesses to manufacture more while using less energy and spending less.
“SMART Manufacturing is a key information technology approach to unlocking energy efficiency in manufacturing,” said Secretary Ernest Moniz. “These technologies will make industries from oil and gas to aerospace and food production more competitive with intelligent communications systems, real-time energy savings and increased energy productivity. Energy intensive industries, such as steelmaking, could see a 10 to 20 percent reduction in the cost of production, making products such as solar panels and chemical materials, such as plastics, as well as the cars and other products they go into, more affordable for American consumers.”
United States Establishes First Food Waste Reduction Goal
By Allan Gerlat, Waste360.
Two government agencies have established the United States first-ever food waste reduction goal, calling for a 50-percent reduction by 2030.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) combined to establish the goal and will lead a partnership with the private sector, charitable organizations, faith-based organizations, and local, state and tribal governments to reduce food loss and waste to improve overall food security and conserve natural resources, according to a news release.
New renewable natural gas technology debuts in Placer County, CA
By InvestorIdeas.com.
A new technology for converting forest waste into renewable natural gas was demonstrated for the first time ever today in Auburn.
The Company has secured term sheets for tax equity and debt financing, and is now launching a process to secure equity financing for the DG Fund from cash equity investors. Tenor Capital, the principal investor in Empower Energies through the private investment funds it manages, will be the general partner and investment advisor for the DG Fund. Marathon Capital will be seeking additional cash equity from qualified institutional investors to invest alongside Tenor Capital's investors.
The process, developed by Canadian firm G4 Insights, converts scraps and small trees from forest thinning projects into a renewable natural gas called biomethane. In its first public demonstration, G4 used gas produced on site to fuel an unmodified Placer County truck.
Egyptian Ministry to allocate land, produce methane gas from organic waste
Al-Masry Al-Youm, Egypt Independent.
Methane gas taken from organic waste in villages will provide an alternative to butane gas in a new project announced by Local Development Minister Major General Adel Labib.
The project was initially implemented in the Ahwa and al-Waqf villages in Beni Suef in June, Labib added in a press statement Monday.
This move will significantly help in getting rid of organic waste and solving the problem of sewege and contaminated groundwater in villages, as well as provide an alternative to butane gas, he said.
House panel to work on permanent tax breaks
By Joseph Lawler, Washington Examiner.
A House panel will work this week on re-upping expired tax breaks and making them permanent.
The Ways and Means Committee announced Tuesday that it would hold a markup Thursday to pass a slew of tax bills, including several so-called "extenders," or temporary tax provisions that are frequently renewed.
Among the provisions is a tax break, known as "bonus depreciation," that allows businesses to more quickly write off the cost of new investment.
N.C. State GOP budget compromise drops state's renewable energy tax credit
By John Downey, Charlotte Business Journal.
North Carolina’s 35% tax credit for solar and other renewable energy projects apparently will die Dec. 31.
A compromise budget reached by Republicans in the state House and Senate, set to be announced Monday afternoon, will not include any provision to extend the credit or allow it to be reduced in steps over the next two years, sources say.
The credit, along with state requirements that utilities increase the amount of energy from renewable sources they sell in the state, has been an important incentive in a solar boom in North Carolina in the last four years. In that time, the state has gone from no significant amount of solar power produced to ranking fourth in the nation, with just under 1,100 megawatts of capacity. This year, with the tax credit still in place, the state is on track for almost 800 megawatts of new capacity to be built by the end of the year.
German Startup Franchises Biogas Bag Business in Africa
By Mike Hower, Sustainable Brands.
German social enterprise B-Energy has developed portable “digester” bags that produce methane gas out of food waste or animal droppings, which can help low-income entrepreneurs in the global South make a living through a franchise model, BBC News reports.
The bags, which are heat and fire resistant, come with a tap and pipe that users can attach to a gas stove. They hold up to 1.2 cubic meters of gas — enough for about five hours of cooking.
Currently, the business still is in its early stages, with two franchisees in Ethiopia and one in Sudan. B-Energy hopes its bags can serve as a clean, cheap alternative to cooking on smoky, polluting wood fires, which is common in both of these countries and throughout the world’s poorest regions.
Indian entrepreneur develops biogas-fuelled fuel cell
By Editor2, Greentech Lead.
An Indian entrepreneur based in Pune, Maharashtra, has developed a biogas-fuelled solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) generator.
According to The Times of India, Siddharth Mayur, the founder president of h2e Power Systems, has developed the system which uses biogas produced from the breakdown of organic materials such as agricultural waste in the absence of oxygen.
Siddharth has told ToI that his fuel cell uses biogas, ammonia, other gaseous hydrocarbons or liquid fuels such as methanol and ethanol. “The input is renewable,” he says.
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