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Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.1,000 tonnes of food wasted in Dubai to be used to produce power
Dubai Municipality eyes biogas plant to re-use waste food for energy
By Mariam M. Al Serkal, Gulf News.
Food. Glorious Food! And it's not just Broadway singing.
Now, Dubai’s landfills are singing to the tune of 1,000 tonnes of food waste per day, according to a senior municipality official on Tuesday.
The plan is to put those tonnes of discarded food to good use by turning them into biofuel.
Food waste is not limited to residential homes: Hotels, catering companies and schools also generate food waste.
17 governors to work together on clean energy
By Kyle Feldscher, Washington Examiner
The governors of 17 states signed an agreement to promote clean energy, clean transportation, more modern electrical grids and to plan for a clean energy future.
The Governor's Accord for a New Energy Future was signed by a bipartisan coalition of governors representing 127 million people Tuesday afternoon. Under the agreement, the governors pledge to diversify their energy sources and expand their commitments to clean energy, modernizing their infrastructure and working toward securing a stronger national energy future.
"We recognize that now is the time to embrace a bold vision of the nation's energy future," the accord states. "And to do so, states are once again poised to lead. We join together, despite unique opportunities and challenges in each state, to embrace a shared vision of this future."
What Antonin Scalia's death means for Obama's climate plans
By Brad Plumer, Vox Media, Inc.
The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia will have countless political and policy ramifications. But here's a big one: President Obama's plan to tackle global warming faces considerably less legal peril than it did just three days ago.
Last Thursday, the Supreme Court surprised everyone by voting 5-4 to issue a stay and postpone implementation of Obama's Clean Power Plan — a major EPA rule to cut carbon-dioxide emissions from the electricity sector. The Court hasn't yet decided on the rule's legality, but the stay suggested that the five conservative justices — Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Kennedy — were inclined to strike it down. Analysts frettedthat doing so could, in turn, cause the international climate deal forged at Paris to unravel.
Now, everything has changed with Scalia's passing and the Supreme Court split 4-4 between conservatives and liberals. The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit may end up playing a much bigger role in deciding the regulation's legal fate. That's fairly good news for Obama — although his climate plans aren't safe just yet.
Landfill Gas Project Financing Falls Through in Oregon's Deschutes County
By Ted Shorack, The Bulletin.
A landfill gas-to-liquid fuel energy project fell through last week after the company involved was unable to meet prescribed deadlines made by Deschutes County.
Waste to Energy Group LLC, the Irvine, California-based company proposing the project, repeatedly said it had trouble financing the estimated $20 million endeavor.
The county chose to terminate a contract with the company Tuesday. Negotiations between the county and Waste to Energy for the project began in 2011.
Breaking Down the GTL Project at an Oklahoma Landfill
By Megan Greenwalt, Waste 360.
Final contracts have been signed to bring a joint venture gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant to the Waste Management East Oak Landfill site in Oklahoma City, Okla. These last contracts will cover the installation of process modules, related piping and ancillary equipment, for ENVIA's Oklahoma City GTL plant.
ENVIA Energy is the joint venture, between Houston-based Waste Management, Ventech Engineers International LLC, and Velocys, formed in March 2014 to produce renewable fuels and chemicals from biogas and natural gas using GTL.
Ventech Engineers International LLC designs and fabricates process modules for the oil and gas industry, with more than 350 modules, encompassing 25 different hydrocarbon processes, built in Ventech's Pasadena, Texas fabrication facility. Velocys, commercially based in Houston, Texas, deals with smaller scale GTL that turns natural gas or biomass into premium products such as diesel, jet fuel, waxes and base oils.
RNG Big Seller For Clean Energy Fuels
By Richard Nemec, NGI's Daily Natural Gas Index.
Renewable natural gas (RNG) sales for Newport Beach, CA-based Clean Energy Fuels Corp. more than doubled last year as part of its fueling options in the natural gas vehicle (NGV) sector.
Branded as "Redeem," Clean Energy's RNG offering expanded beyond its California fueling outlets to ones in Oregon and Texas last year.
Clean Energy sold more than 50 million gasoline gallon equivalents (GGE) last year, compared to 20 million GGEs of Redeem in 2014, the company said on Thursday, noting some major fleet operators who are using the product in their NGVs, such as United Parcel Service (UPS), Santa Monica, CA's Big Blue bus system, and the University of California, San Diego, campus.
Canada, U.S., Mexico agree to 'continental approach' on clean energy
By Josh Elliott, CTVNews.ca.
Canada, the United States and Mexico agreed to greater clean energy co-operation in North America Friday, at a press conference interrupted by an anti-pipeline protester in Winnipeg.
Jim Carr, Canada's minister of natural resources, said Friday that the agreement "strengthens our collective energy security," while presenting "a bold vision for our continent."
The agreement will allow Canada, the U.S. and Mexico to work together on developing strategies to address low-carbon electricity, clean technologies, carbon capture, energy efficiency and oil and gas emissions.
Gov. Jerry Brown makes budget the latest battleground on climate change
By Christine Mai-Duc, Los Angeles Times.
Gov. Jerry Brown is looking to make good on a promise to curb California's petroleum use by shifting away from new legislation and instead tucking his fuel-reduction goal inside the state budget.
Oil companies spent millions of dollars in 2015 to strip a controversial climate change bill of its provision slashing petroleum use in half by 2030. At the conclusion of that bruising fight, a defiant Brown stood before reporters in the Capitol and declared war.
"Oil has won the skirmish. But they've lost the bigger battle," he said. "Because I am more determined than ever ... we're not going to miss a beat."
Energy bill passes Oregon House as bill readings delay Legislature
By Kristena Hansen, Associated Press, via The Statesman Journal.
When the Oregon Legislature began its whirlwind 35-day session two weeks ago, Republicans employed a rarely-used tool to stall the legislative process.
The issue centers around the fact that each bill is being read aloud in its entirety before lawmakers can cast votes, a constitutional requirement usually avoided on the first day of the session by a two-thirds vote in both chambers. But without support of the Republican minority, the bills are being read in full. The GOP is pushing the tactic because it is unhappy with the policy changes being proposed by Democrats.
That became problematic Monday when that tactic prompted House lawmakers to hold a marathon floor debate for more than six hours, forcing the delay and eventual rescheduling of several committee hearings and floor votes to the following day - costing time that is already limited for this year's jam-packed short session.
Oil group API sues U.S. EPA over biofuels policy
By Chris Prentice and Lisa Shumaker, Reuters.
NEW YORK - The American Petroleum Institute (API) has sued the U.S. environmental regulator over its plan for biofuels use, the group said on Thursday, on the heels of a similar lawsuit from another oil association.
API is challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's failure to meet deadlines for the 2014 and 2017 biomass-based diesel standards and for mandating more cellulosic ethanol in 2016 than exists, a spokesman for the group said in a statement.
The group is seeking review by a U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., according to a document filed on Thursday.
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