RNG NEWS
Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.Obama’s energy remark baffles Alaska senators
By Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media.
In his final State of the Union address last night, President Obama never mentioned Alaska or the Arctic, but for a state that’s as dependent on oil as Alaska is, one passage really stood out. It baffled both of Alaska’s senators.
The passage begins with Obama saying it’s time to accelerate the move away from “dirtier” energy.
“Rather than subsidize the past, we should invest in the future, especially in communities that rely on fossil fuels. We do them no favor when we don’t show them where the trends are going. That’s why I’m going to push to change the way we manage our oil and coal resources so that they better reflect the cost they impose on taxpayers, and the planet.”
NY Administration plans to train 10,000 for clean energy workforce
ALBANY — The state will train a clean-energy workforce of 10,000 to help make New York more reliant on renewables, according to a copy of a Cuomo administration proposal provided to POLITICO New York.
According to an administration source, Cuomo plans to discuss the plan in today's State of the State speech.
Under the proposal, the state will set aside $15 million to train the workforce needed to fill the solar, wind and other jobs expected to be created as New York becomes more reliant on renewable energy. SolarCity, 1366 Technologies and Soraa alone will create about 6,000 jobs in the next few years.
Rubio fights cap-and-trade charges
By Timothy Cama, The Hill.
Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign fought charges Wednesday that he once endorsed a cap-and-trade system to fight climate change.
The charges came after the surfacing of a video from 2008 that appeared to show Rubio, then Speaker of Florida's House, calling for the state’s environmental agency to form a cap-and-trade or tax system for carbon dioxide emissions.
“I'm in favor of giving the Florida Department of Environmental Protection a mandate, that they go out and design a cap-and-trade or a carbon tax program and bring it back to the legislature for ratification sometime in the next two years,” he said on a local public-access television program unearthed by the video first reported by Breitbart News.
Reports: Ohio energy standard costs lower than previously thought
By Kathiann M. Kowalski, Midwest Energy News.
As Ohio lawmakers continue to debate the state’s renewable energy standards, a pair of recent reports show the costs of complying with the laws are significantly lower than previously thought.
The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) issued its final alternative energy compliance report for the year 2013 last week on the same day that the Department of Energy announced new reports showing that renewable energy standards produced nationwide benefits worth more than seven times their costs in 2013.
The PUCO’s report “needed to be provided at an earlier date” to lawmakers, because utilities’ average costs for RECs went down significantly from 2012 to 2013, said Neil Waggoner of the Sierra Club.
Capturing renewable natural gas for the pork industry
By Industrial & Environmental Concepts Inc., via National Hog Farmer.
A Missouri project, believed to be the largest and most comprehensive livestock manure-to-energy of its type in the world, is currently under way. The project efficiently treats waste from approximately 2 million hogs. The farms are being covered by Industrial & Environmental Concepts, a designer and installer of cover systems for wastewater lagoons and tanks. Roeslein Alternative Energy of St. Louis selected IEC to provide the gas collection cover systems to dozens of hog lagoons in northern Missouri.
The covers effectively capture and channel valuable gases that are byproducts of the manure storage on the farms. The collected gas is sent to equipment for scrubbing, cleaning and then compressed into natural gas. The manure is effectively broken down to basic elements, making the nutrients easily available to plants in the form of fertilizer. The benefit of this system is not limited to the creation of natural gas and fertilizer; it also reduces the carbon footprint of the facilities which globally has become an important environmental topic.
Harvest Power Sells 6 MW Anaerobic Digestion Biogas Plant in Ontario
By Ben Messenger, Waste Management World.
In Ontario, Canada StormFisher Environmental has acquired the London Energy Garden, an anaerobic digester which processes organic waste from southwestern Ontario into biogas and natural fertilisers, from Harvest Ontario Partners – a part of Waltham, Massachusetts based AD developer, Harvest Power.
The facility, which was developed by Harvest Power, turns organic materials such as food scraps, food production residuals, fats oils and grease, and other discarded organic waste from food processors, retailers and food retail outlets into biogas which is used to generate electricity, as well as fertilisers.
StormFisher Environmental is majority owned and operated by StormFisher, Ltd, a company said to have deep Ontario market knowledge and biogas experience. Harvest Power is a minority owner in StormFisher Environmental.
Could post-Paris climate policy drive growth in carbon trading?
By Madeleine Cuff, Business Green.
Despite optimistic lobbying from business, most people were not expecting the Paris Agreement to deliver much in the way of progress for the international carbon market.
So perhaps one of the big surprises to emerge from the summit was the fact the treaty appeared to provide a long-term boost to carbon markets - not only by setting a clear long-term direction for decarbonisation efforts, but also with the inclusion of specific proposals to enable greater co-operation between different regional carbon markets.
According to the annual Carbon Market Monitor report, released this week by the Point Carbon team of analysts at Thomson Reuters, observers at the UN talks were surprised to see that the treaty "contains clear support" for the creation of new market mechanisms for the transfer of mitigation outcomes.
State renewable energy mandates are producing enormous benefits
By David Roberts, Vox.
Much has been made of the rapid rise of renewable energy in the US, but the policy workhorse behind it does not get nearly enough attention or credit.
I'm talking about the renewable portfolio standard (RPS): state laws that mandate a certain minimum amount of renewable energy in the electricity mix, rising over time.
Some 29 states and DC now have RPSs in place.
These standards were mostly passed in the late 1990s and 2000s, when (not coincidentally) Democrats had more power in state governments.
US State of the Union 2016: selected remarks on energy and climate change
By Jim Lane, Biofuels Digest.
“Gas under two bucks a gallon ain’t bad, either.”
So let’s talk about the future, and four big questions that we as a country have to answer—regardless of who the next President is, or who controls the next Congress.
First, how do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy?
Second, how do we make technology work for us, and not against us—especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change?
Ontario region invests in anaerobic digestion to reach diversion goal
By Arlene Karidis, Waste Dive.
Dive Brief:
- The Region of Peel, near Toronto, will invest in anaerobic digestion to convert organic waste into natural gas. This option was the decided alternative to building a larger waste-to-energy plant in Brampton, OH that would have converted 300,000 to 400,000 metric tons of municipal solid waste to steam or electricity annually.
- The intention of the anaerobic digestion project is to help Peel reach a 75% landfill diversion target by 2034.
- Peel now diverts about 46% of its solid waste from landfill but, after the anaerobic digester system launches in 2021, the region hopes to bump its diversion rate to 60%.
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