RNG NEWS
Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.Pataki flips stance on Renewable Fuel Standard
By Linh Ta, The Des Moines Register.
Former New York Gov. George Pataki said Saturday that he would keep the government's promise of the Renewable Fuel Standard, changing his stance on the issue since discussing it in Iowa in March.
"It's quite clear to me that when government tells people, 'If you do this, we'll do that,' government does not just have a moral, but I think it almost has a legal obligation to keep their word," Pataki said Saturday afternoon in West Des Moines. "People have invested millions and millions of dollars based on the government's commitment."
During a town hall on agricultural and rural issues, that will be televised and was sponsored by RFD-TV and Mediacom, Pataki said he is mostly for eliminating exemptions and loopholes in the tax code, but the government needs to keep its promise on the RFS.
2016 Oregon ballot looks to refight hot-button feuds like low carbon fuel standard
By Jonathan Cooper, The Associated Press, via The Register-Guard.
SALEM — Oregon’s 2016 ballot looks to be filled with hot-button initiatives that have left voters sharply divided in the past.
Ballot measures on corporate taxes, the minimum wage, union rights and immigration all could appear. So could other issues new to voters, like repealing a carbon-reduction program and liquor privatization.
It’s still early, however, and very few initiative organizers have started collecting signatures.
What's left of California's Climate Change policy? A lot.
By Kate Galbraith, CALmatters.
The Legislature may have scuttled the centerpiece of Gov. Jerry Brown’s climate change plans, but it still approved ambitious new environmental policies that will impact the economy and life of Californians.
In coming years, the new legislation means California’s homes and buildings are expected to use dramatically less electricity and the power grid will increase its share of renewable energy. Brown also hopes to achieve much of what the Legislature rejected through executive orders and regulations. That will mean more electric cars on the road and increased use of biofuels, as part of a far-reaching effort to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
“This is a long trek forward to change the very basis of our industrial economy,” Brown said last week. “And I think we’re making tremendous progress.”
New Study says EPA May Be Underestimating Landfill Methane
By Bobby McGill, Climate Central.
Landfills may be emitting more methane than previously reported because the Environmental Protection Agency may be drastically underestimating how much garbage is being deposited in landfills across the U.S., according to a new Yale University study.
Banana peels, coffee grounds, plastic bottles and other detritus tossed in the garbage usually ends up in a landfill and emits methane as it decomposes. Methane is a greenhouse gas up to 35 times as potent as carbon dioxide as a driver of climate change over the span of a century, and landfills are the United States’ third largest source of methane emissions, according to the EPA. The Obama administration is focusing on cutting methane emissions as part of its Climate Action Plan.
The study, published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, examined more than 1,200 solid waste landfills, including those that are open and those that are closed and no longer accepting waste.
Senate Democrats to Unveil Climate Change Bill
By Coral Davenport, The New York Times.
WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic leaders on Tuesday plan to unveil a measure intended to signal their support of President Obama’s aggressive climate change agenda to 2016 voters and to the rest of the world.
The Democrats hope that the bill, sponsored by Senator Maria Cantwell, of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Energy Committee, will demonstrate a new unity for the party on energy and climate change, and define Democrats’ approach to global warming policy in the coming years.
The measure would establish as United States policy a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2 percent each year through 2025 — a cut even larger than the target set by the Obama administration.
Legislative Roundup on Energy from the New England States
By David L. O'Connor and G. Patrick Regan, JD Supra LLC.
On Thursday, September 10, The New England Clean Energy Council (NECEC) hosted its third annual Legislative Roundup. The event brought together clean energy advocates and technology developers from around the Northeast to discuss the region’s latest policies and their impact on residents, businesses, and other key entities. The panel presentation, moderated by NECEC President Peter Rothstein and NECEC VP of Policy and Government Affairs Janet Gail Besser, included Jeff Marks of E2Tech, Kate Epsen of the New Hampshire Sustainable Energy Association, Gabrielle Stebbins of Renewable Energy Vermont, as well as Dan Bosley and Sue AnderBois, both of NECEC. Read below for a look at the latest in regional energy policy trends:
Vermont: Stebbins’ presentation focused on the legislature’s passage of Act 56, which establishes a renewable portfolio standard and takes a three tiered approach to increasing the state’s renewable energy consumption. The first tier sets renewable energy credit (REC) ratio goals for renewably sourced retail electricity sales, mandating 55% by 2017, rising to 75% by 2032. Qualified renewable resources that already exist in Vermont are expected to provide for the initial 55% requirement, with new resources contributing to the increases over time. Tier two mandates an increase in utility electricity purchased from distributed generation (1% by 2017 and 10% by 2032), while tier three is an “energy innovation tier” that offers incentives for other improvements, including electric vehicles. With an RPS adopted, the state now focuses on possible net metering changes. Vermont’s public service board is currently developing regulations for the program.
Woodlands considers switch to natural gas for its commuter buses
By Bridget Balch, Houston Chronicle.
Woodlands, Texas - The Woodlands may opt to make its new commuter buses more environmentally friendly by outfitting them to be powered by Compressed Natural Gas - a cleaner fossil fuel alternative to gasoline - if the switch proves feasible.
Last year, The Woodlands Township received $14 million in Federal Transit Administration grant money through the Houston-Galveston Area Council and matched $3 million to purchase 25 new commuter buses for the park and ride service, allowing the township to bypass leasing the use of the vehicles from a third party operator.
In an effort to make those buses easier on the environment and as a potential cost-saving option, the township's transportation committee decided to explore the option of retrofitting the buses to make them compatible with CNG.
ASU researchers' commitment to renewable energy in Ethiopia includes biogas technology
AORA Solar, a leading developer of solar-biogas hybrid power technology has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Arizona State University LightWorks, Addis Ababa Science and Technology University (AASTU) and Adama Science and Technology University (ASTU).
The goal is to promote academic cooperation for the development and advancement of renewable energy technologies to support the implementation of Ethiopia’s Climate Resilient Green Economy Strategy. This strategy aims to transform Ethiopia into a carbon-neutral middle-income country by 2025.
California lawmakers never agreed on cap-and-trade funding. Now what?
By Allen Young, Sacramento Business Journal.
Back in June, the Brown administration announced that it would carve out more than $1 billion in expected cap-and-trade revenue from the budget discussion because lawmakers couldn’t agree on how to spend the money.
As lawmakers quarreled and attempted to direct funds into their individual districts, funding proposals included everything from road repairs to mosquito research. But as the dust cleared after last Friday’s legislative deadline, $969 million in cap-and-trade remained unspent.
The state will now hold onto those funds until January, when the governor proposes a spending plan for the new fiscal year.
Research uses landfill gas tech for Bakken flaring solution
By Patrick C. Miller, The Bakken Magazine.
A new technology that could help industry reduce the volume of flaring in North Dakota is being tested in the Bakken through the Environmentally Friendly Drilling (EFD) Program run by the Houston Advance Research Center (HARC).
The research is taking place at a Hess Corp. well site in the Blue Buttes area of McKenzie County using waste-heat-to-power technology developed by ElectraTherm Inc. of Reno, Nevada. The company is collaborating on the project with Gulf Coast Green Energy (GCGE), an ElectraTherm distributor headquartered in Bay City, Texas.
John Fox, ElectraTherm CEO, said that although the company has a great deal of experience in using its technology to turn waste gas into energy at landfills and waste water treatment facilities, this is its first gas flaring project.
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