RNG NEWS
Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.Los Angeles exercised options for an additional 350 CNG buses
By USGasVehicles.com.
February 12, 2016. New Flyer of America Inc., a subsidiary of New Flyer Industries Inc., the leading manufacturer of heavy-duty transit buses and motor coaches in the United States and Canada, announced that the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (LA Metro) has exercised options for 350 heavy-duty 40-foot compressed natural gas (CNG) buses.
Placing the Clean Power Plan in context
By Jonathan H. Adler, Washington Post.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued a stay blocking the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, a set of regulations controlling greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants under the Clean Air Act. Under the stay, the EPA cannot take actions to implement or enforce the CPP until pending legal challenges against the rule are resolved in the courts. These cases are currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
As a follow-up to last night’s post about the stay, this post is intended to provide more background on the underlying legal issues. One thing this post should make clear is that while the Supreme Court’s action is, in many respects, without precedent, so too is the CPP. It is not only the most ambitious climate-related initiative undertaken by the EPA, but it also relies upon unprecedented assertions of legal authority. And, to be clear, by “unprecedented” I mean just that — without precedent. This is not the same thing as saying that a specific argument or action is unlawful or wrong, only that it raises new legal questions that courts have not had cause to answer before.
Environmental groups call to remove wood-based biomass from EU Renewable Energy Directive
By Bioenergy Insight.
More than 110 environmental groups across the globe have signed a declaration demanding that bioenergy be excluded from the EU's next Renewable Energy Directive (RED).
The EU is considering renewal of the RED for 2020 onwards in a consultation which ended yesterday (10 February). A decision is expected by the end of the year.
The RED will determine Europe's path forward on meeting its carbon emissions reductions targets following the Paris agreement signed December 2015.
Report: Biomass, biogas, waste-to-energy add 224 MW of capacity in 2015
By Arlene Karidis, Waste Dive.
- The newly released Sustainable Energy in America Factbook, produced by the Business Council for Sustainable Energy and Bloomberg New Energy Finance, shows renewable energy trends — including biomass, biogas, and waste-to-energy — added 224 MW of capacity last year, up 15% from 2014.
- Capex for waste-to-energy and anaerobic digestion showed a slight decrease in 2015, however due to relatively few WTE projects under development at any given time, the costs of individual projects can significantly fluctuate these figures.
- There has been an increase in asset finance for new biomass, as well as an increase in capacity. Biogas capacity has been declining, despite that asset finance has rebounded, with low natural gas prices among main reasons. And more than half of renewable energy investments go to solar technologies, as reported in Biomass Magazine.
Long Beach to Power Vehicles with Renewable Natural Gas
By USGasVehicles.com.
February 3, 2016. Long Beach (California) officials announced Tuesday that roughly 18 percent of its vehicle fleet will switch to renewable fuels such as natural gas and renewable diesel.
“The shift to these renewable fuels is an important part of the city’s commitment to sustainability and greenhouse gas reductions,” Mayor Robert Garcia said in a written statement. “I’m proud that Long Beach has one of the greenest fleets in the United States.”
A total of 393 vehicles will now be powered by renewable fuels, out of 2.185 vehicles in the city’s total fleet.
Senate Energy Bill Shelved for Two Weeks While Democrats Focus on Flint Aid
By Mike DeBonis, Washington Post.
Congressional Democrats continued pressing for federal help for Flint, Mich., saying that $195 million in new state aid proposed Wednesday by Gov. Rick Snyder amounted to only a fraction of the resources necessary to rebuild the city’s poisoned water system and address the health of its residents.
Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), who represents the city of 100,000, said Wednesday he had “no confidence” in the ability of Snyder (R) to commit sufficient state resources and called on Congress to make an emergency appropriation of $765 million to be matched with state funds.
“It’s a situation that requires a response equal to the gravity of the problem,” he said. “The governor has been woefully delinquent in his responsibility to make it right for the people of Flint. … If the governor won’t correct the mistakes that he made, we’re going to have to do everything we can here at the federal level to get people in Flint the help that they deserve."
Senators: No deal yet on Flint aid, energy bill
By Timothy Cama, The Hill.
The leaders of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said Monday that they still haven’t come to an agreement on an aid package for Flint, Mich.’s drinking water crisis.
Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said they worked throughout the weekend to come to a deal that both parties could support, which would allow passage of the broad energy reform bill the senators have been working on for more than a year.
"With our time on the Senate floor running short, we are working toward an agreement to allow our energy bill to move forward," Murkowski and Cantwell said in a joint statement. "At the same time, we are working to help advance a measure to address the Flint water crisis and hope that it will be brought up as soon as possible."
Supreme Court puts the brakes on the EPA’s Clean Power Plan
By Jonathan H. Adler, Washington Post.
Tuesday evening, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay, halting implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan pending the resolution of legal challenges to the program in court. The CPP is arguably the Obama administration’s signature environmental initiative, representing the EPA’s most ambitious effort to control greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Five separate stay applications were filed by more than two dozen states and numerous industry groups. Other states, environmental groups and some energy companies opposed the stay.
The order reads as follows:
The application for a stay submitted to The Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court is granted. The Environmental Protection Agency’s “Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units,” 80 Fed. Reg. 64,662 (October 23, 2015), is stayed pending disposition of the applicants’ petitions for review in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and disposition of the applicants’ petition for a writ of certiorari, if such writ is sought. If a writ of certiorari is sought and the Court denies the petition, this order shall terminate automatically. If the Court grants the petition for a writ of certiorari, this order shall terminate when the Court enters its judgment.
Gas-to-energy plans under way at Milner Butte, Idaho
By Andy Kerstetter, Idaho Mountain Express.
The Milner Butte Landfill in Burley—where all of Blaine County’s garbage ends up in addition to that of Cassia, Jerome, Minidoka, Gooding, Lincoln and Twin Falls counties—could become a new electric power center for the region.
Southern Idaho Solid Waste, which manages the landfill and takes care of the municipal solid waste from the seven counties, is designing a landfill gas-to-energy project that would convert gas produced as a byproduct of waste decomposition into electricity.
Southern Idaho Solid Waste CEO Josh Bartlome and engineer Stephen Fryberger gave a presentation of the project to the Blaine County commissioners at their regular meeting Tuesday. The commissioners made no decision but will wait until later in the year when the other counties’ commissioners have been filled in.
Bipartisan comity reigns, but poison pills may be ahead
By Geof Koss and Hannah Hess, E & E News.
The bipartisan spirit underlying the Senate's first foray into broad energy legislation in nearly a decade has endured through the initial days of debate, although stumbling blocks await senators when they return next week to finish the bill.
The chamber worked through a list of relatively noncontroversial amendments yesterday. Senators authorized new research into advanced nuclear reactors and boosted spending levels for the Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E (Greenwire, Jan. 28; E&ENews PM, Jan. 28).
Lawmakers approved another batch of amendments by voice vote, which included measures to modernize energy policy for tribal land, expand research into water treatment facilities, reinstate the license for Montana's Gibson Dam project and require a federal study on the feasibility of opening an ethane storage and distribution hub in the Marcellus, Utica and Rogersville shale plays.
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