RNG NEWS
Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.Interface Americas using 96% renewable energy, including RNG
Via LaGrange Daily News.
ATLANTA — Interface, the world’s largest commercial modular carpet company and a sustainable business pioneer, announced Wednesday a milestone in the company’s Mission Zero initiative — the Americas manufacturing sites now operate using 96 percent renewable energy.
The renewable energy operation in the Americas brings the company’s global renewable energy usage to 84 percent. The renewable energy comes from directed biogas to meet the thermal energy needs of the company’s flagship operations in Troup County.
“Getting our factories in Americas to near 100 percent in renewable energy is a significant achievement — one that is a first for our industry and likely for industry in general,” said Erin Meezan, vice president of sustainability for Interface Inc. “When we began our focus on Mission Zero 22 years ago, renewable energy was at the heart of our strategy to eliminate our carbon footprint. Four years before our milestone year of 2020, we are ahead of plan and on track to achieve our 2020 goals.”
Can the House and Senate turn two energy bills into one law?
By Herman K. Trabish, Utility Dive.
Lawmakers from the two chambers remain far apart on some key issues and a veto threat hangs over negotiations
Last month, the U.S. Senate defied the beltway trope of legislative gridlock that has characterized the Obama era, passing a broad energy bill in an 82-12 vote.
Approval in the Senate on April 20 marked the first time the chamber has passed a bipartisan energy bill since 2007, and national media reacted with appropriate surprise.
"It doesn't happen every day, but it happened Wednesday," the Washington Post noted in an article titled "The Senate just passed — overwhelmingly — an actually bipartisan energy bill."
New cogen system triples energy output from biogas at Oregon WWTP
By Katie Fletcher, Biomass Magazine.
On May 4, Clean Water Services, Energy Trust of Oregon and the Oregon Department of Energy formally announced the implementation of a new cogeneration system that converts wastewater and grease into renewable energy. The innovative system, which is part of Clean Water Services Durham Treatment Facility, is the third cogeneration system in Oregon to codigest fats, oils and grease (FOG).
Amongst the people in attendance of the renewable energy facility opening were Andy Duyck, chair of Clean Water Services of Washington County; Michael Kaplan, director of the Oregon Department of Energy; and Betsy Kauffman, renewable energy sector lead of the Energy Trust of Oregon.
Since 1993, Durham has operated a 500-kW cogeneration system using biogas from the communities’ wastewater to offset its own energy usage. By replacing this smaller engine with two new Jenbacher 848-kW engines, Durham now has a 1.7 MW cogeneration system fueled by biogas produced from the anaerobic digestion (AD) of municipal wastewater solids as well as FOG from Washington County restaurants, commercial food processors and others. Average gallons of FOG codigested per week will start at 70,000 gallons and is expected to increase to 100,000 gallons within the next six months. The Durham campus hosts two, 1.3 million gallon digesters. Prior to being fed to the engine, the biogas will need to be treated with a gas treatment system made by Unison Solutions that will remove hydrogen sulfide particulates, siloxane and moisture from the raw biogas.
AMP Americas Launches Biogas Division
Via HDT.
AMP Americas has launched ampRENEW, a biogas division dedicated to the company’s growing renewable fuel business that has entered into fueling agreements with Dillon Transport and Ruan Transportation Management Systems.
The two companies have signed to have ampRENEW fuel a portion of their fleets at ampCNG fueling stations, the company announced.
Conservative group says N.C. support for clean energy is growing
By John Downey, Charlotte Business Journal.
The latest poll on N.C. voter preferences involving energy shows strong support for renewables, declining support for nuclear plant construction and strong opposition to fracking in the state.
The poll also shows strong support for restoring state tax credits for renewble energy and legislation allowing independent producers to sell power directly to customers. Voters overwhelmingly say they would support candidates who advocate these positions, according to the poll.
Development of biogas facility in works at Chatham's Ridge Landfill
By Ellwood Shreve, Chatham Daily News.
Expanding the Ridge Landfill isn't the only future project Progressive Waste Solutions has planned for the site.
The company is currently working on plans to develop a biogas facility to convert landfill gas into pipeline-quality natural gas, said Wes Muir, PWS director of public and government relations.
He said the local project would be about the same size as the biogas facility Progressive operates at its Lachenaie Landfill in eastern Montreal, which is the largest of its kind in Canada and among the largest in North America.
Report: NC renewable energy investments grew at slower rate in 2015
By John Murawski, The News & Observer.
North Carolina’s investment in renewable energy appears to be peaking.
For the first time since 2007, the amount of money that residents and businesses have claimed in the state’s renewable energy tax credit has barely budged.
Last year, the amount claimed was $136.3 million, only 7.5 percent more than the $126.7 million claimed in 2014, according to a report issued Friday by the N.C. Department of Revenue.
In previous years, the amount claimed would roughly double every year as Duke Energy and other utilities raced to meet the state’s mandate for renewable energy. The smaller increase in 2015 does not have an obvious explanation, said Charlotte tax accountant Randy Lucas, who advises investors in renewable energy projects.
Solano County landfill gas-to-energy project providing clean power to homes
By DTE Energy, via PRNewswire.
Potrero Hills Energy Producers, a partnership between DTE Biomass Energy Inc. and Pacolet Milliken Enterprises, recently started generating electricity from landfill gas.
This cleaner source of electricity comes from a newly constructed renewable energy facility at the Potrero Hills Landfill in Suisun City, Calif.
DTE Biomass Energy, the developer and operator of the project, declared commercial operation of the 8-megawatt facility at the landfill, which is operated by Waste Connections Inc. of The Woodlands, Texas. Gas generated at the landfill will be used to produce renewable energy for Pacific Gas & Electric under a long-term purchase agreement.
Air Quality and Climate Protection Goals Addressed with Renewable Natural Gas Fuel, Technical White Paper Finds
Via EconoTimes.
May 3, 2016 - Gladstein Neandross & Associates (GNA) today released a technical white paper – written on behalf of multiple private and public sector organizations – that explores the need and approaches to start deploying zero-emission and near-zero-emission heavy-duty vehicle technologies on a wide-scale basis in the United States. With approximately 166 million Americans residing in areas with exceedingly poor air quality, and with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) contributing to global climate change, America needs to more aggressively transform on-road HDVs to the lowest emission technologies and fuels available. The White Paper has compared four fuel-technology combinations to address these goals and has concluded that there is only one pathway in highly impactful heavy-duty trucking applications that meets the commercial feasibility and logistics tests to immediately begin this transformation. This is near-zero-emission heavy-duty natural gas vehicles fueled by increasing volumes of ultra-low-GHG renewable natural gas (RNG).
"As progressive corporations and municipalities across America are looking for ways to reduce their environmental footprint, we are seeing increased focus on the transportation sector to address sustainability goals," said Erik Neandross, CEO of Gladstein, Neandross and Associates, co-author of the whitepaper. "This engine-fuel combination provides a phenomenal opportunity for progressive heavy-duty fleet operators to effectively eliminate emissions from their mobile operations."
Why we’re still so incredibly confused about methane’s role in global warming
By Chris Mooney, Washington Post.
It’s perhaps the most contentious issue in U.S. climate change policy right now: How can we deal with emissions of methane, a powerful if short-lived greenhouse gas, which has many sources but appears to be leaking into the air in considerable volumes from U.S. oil and gas operations?
The Obama administration is expected to release methane regulations for new sources of emissions very soon, and the EPA recently revised upwards, considerably, its estimates of how much methane is leaking into the atmosphere from the U.S. energy industry. And yet at the same time, there remains considerable scientific uncertainty and debate over just how much methane the U.S. is emitting and how much that has changed due to the current oil and gas boom — and over what those emissions even mean.
A new study in Nature Climate Change, for instance, gets at why understanding the importance of methane can be such a difficult, confusing affair. In particular, it takes issue with some of the math that has often been used to compare the consequences of emitting methane with the impact of the chief, long-lived global warming gas, carbon dioxide. And it finds that really, we may not even know how important our methane emissions are in the first place until we also know how quickly we’re able to get carbon dioxide under control.
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