RNG NEWS
Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.Moderate GOP senators form green coalition
By Timothy Cama, The Hill.
Four centrist Senate Republicans are banding together to call for policies to protect the environment.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Mark Kirk (Ill.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) describe the group as a loose coalition that will meet regularly to come up with Republican pro-environment policies and enlist more GOP senators to support them.
The group includes two senators in Ayotte and Kirk who face tough reelection races next year in states won by President Obama in 2012. Their races will help determine which party has the Senate majority in 2017.
National survey results: large majority of voters support RFS
A recent national US survey shows that biodiesel is an increasingly popular alternative fuel and that support for the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is on the rise, according to the National Biodiesel Board (NBB).
With just one month until the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) releases the final RFS rule, 80% of voters support a renewable fuel standard, with 10% opposing it and the rest undecided.
Voter support of an RFS is up from just 70% two years ago.
National Advanced Biofuel Conference Wrap-up: Agreeing to Disagree...Or Not.
By Anna Simet, Biomass Magazine.
I just got back from the National Advanced Biofuel Conference in Omaha, Nebraska, and as you can imagine, I’ve got a pile of work to catch up on.
It was a very good show. Fewer in attendance than previous years, for obvious reasons, but it was a concentrated group of folks, serious stakeholders focused on figuring out the industry’s state and its plan forward. If you’re in the renewable fuel industry, you likely know the renewable fuel standard (RFS) is an issue of major contention right now (leave it alone, versus opening it up for changes). Read a recap of a panel on that very subject here.
If one thing is clear, it is what NABCE keynote Todd Becker underscored: renewable fuel makers of all kinds need to band together, instead of bash each other, to get where we need to go. Kicking the show off, Becker—CEO of ethanol producer Green Plains—delivered a thoughtful and inspiring speech about the journey to where his company is today, and provided a checklist of advice points for new companies working to get off of the ground. While Green Plains is a first-generation ethanol producer, that sector also started from square one to build up the empire that it is today, and there are a lot of parallels.
EnviTec Biogas gets new biogas plant order in New York
By Mariyana Yaneva, SeeNews Renewables.
German biogas plant specialist EnviTec Biogas AG (ETR:ETG) on Thursday said it is continuing its steady growth in the United States with a new contract for the construction of a biogas plant at a dairy farm in New York state.
Commissioning is slated for September 2016.
With a planned electric capacity of 633 kilowatts (kW), the plant will be operated using the liquid manure of more than 2,800 Holstein cows.
Congressional Action Starts on Bid to Block Clean Power Plan
Bloomberg BNA.
A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee is scheduled to vote on Tuesday on two resolutions (H.J. Res 71 and H.J. Res. 72) to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s rules to limit planet-warming gases from existing power plants.
As Bloomberg BNA reported Oct. 28 (for subscribers), Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) introduced the resolutions of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act for the Clean Power Plan, which sets carbon dioxide emissions standards for existing power plants, and for the EPA’s new source performance standards for carbon dioxide emissions from new and modified plants.
What the Federal Liberal Win May Mean For Ontario’s Energy Sector
By Zoë Thoms, Energy Insider, Aird & Berlis LLP.
It has only been a few days since prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau’s election win and we are still over a week away from cabinet appointment announcements. It will be some time before the new federal Liberal government’s energy policy begins to take shape. However, the Liberal platform holds some clues as to what Ontario’s energy sector may expect to see in the near future.
Investment in Clean Tech and Green Infrastructure
The Liberals pledged new investments to support clean tech, including $200 million annually to support clean tech in the forestry, fisheries, mining, energy and agricultural sectors and $100 million per year in clean tech incubators, including Sustainable Development Technology Canada.
Clean tech will also be specifically incorporated into the existing scientific research and experimental development tax credit to facilitate investment. Electricity storage technologies and electrical car charging stations will be added to the list of investments eligible for accelerated capital cost allowance.
Landfill Gas and GHG Reduction Contracts for SCS Engineers in San Diego
By Ben Messenger, Waste Mangement World.
Long Beach, California based consulting firm, SCS Engineers, has been awarded two contracts by the City of San Diego to assist with operations, monitoring and maintenance (OM&M) of the Arizona Street and South Chollas Landfill gas collection system and to comply with requirements of Assembly Bill (AB) 32.
The company explained that AB 32 requires California to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and includes specific provisions for landfills.
According to the consultants, it is the first regulatory program in the country to take a comprehensive, long-term approach to addressing climate change.
Biomethane Tractor Makes Agriculture Greener
By Erin Green, Engineering.com.
Imagine a farm that literally powers itself. That’s the idea behind the “Energy Independent Farm” concept.
The showpiece is the T6 Methane Power tractor, a prototype based on New Holland Agriculture’s T6 tractor.
The Methane Power tractor is nearly indistinguishable from its regular diesel-powered counterpart. The main difference is under the hood. The tractor sports a four cylinder, three-liter engine designed to run on compressed methane also known as natural gas.
$120 million manure-to-energy plant heads to phase 2
By Ben Unglesbee, St. Louis Business Journal.
An area company is working to make energy from a very stinky source.
Roeslein Alternative Energy, based in south St. Louis County and founded by Rudi Roeslein, is heading into the second phase of a $120 million project with Smithfield Foods' Hog Production Division to make natural gas out of livestock manure.
So far covers have been installed on nearly 45 manure lagoons at nine Smithfield farms in northern Missouri. The covers are meant to capture methane from the lagoons at one of the largest concentrations of finishing hogs in the Midwest, according to Roeslein Alternative Energy. The covers turn the lagoons into anaerobic digesters that can produce biogas which can then be burned for energy.
Biofuel groups debate fate of renewable fuel standard
By Anna Simet, Biomass Magazine.
Agreeing to respectfully disagree was one of very few assenting points reached by association heads representing the biodiesel, ethanol and advanced biofuel groups during a candid debate about the renewable fuel standard (RFS), policy amendments and the best course of action to maintain and grow the industry.
At the National Advanced Biofuel Conference being held in Omaha, Nebraska, on Oct. 26-28, Advanced Biofuels Association President Michael McAdams found his beliefs at odds with major viewpoints of National Biodiesel Board CEO Joe Jobe and Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Executive Director Monte Shaw, mainly the potential amending of the RFS, which ABFA supports.
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