RNG NEWS
Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.RNG in California: Leadership, Market Certainty
By the conclusion of California’s 2015-‘16 legislative session at the end of August, amid a flurry of uncertainty and opposition, the state legislature passed SB 32, which extends the LCFS and cap-and-trade compliance programs beyond 2020 to 2030.
By Marcus Gillette, Biomass Magazine.
Earlier this summer, reports emerged that California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard was at risk of major reform, or even elimination. The RNG Coalition responded, in solidarity with like-minded clean energy, renewable fuels, organized labor and environmental advocates.
By the conclusion of California’s 2015-‘16 legislative session at the end of August, amid a flurry of uncertainty and opposition, the state legislature passed SB 32. The bill effectively extends the LCFS and cap-and-trade compliance programs beyond 2020 to 2030. "The LCFS as a compliance program and market driver is here to stay and renewable natural gas will continue to be one of its major success stories,” said Johannes Escudero, RNG Coalition CEO and executive director. “We commend Gov. Brown, Sen. Pavley, Assemblymember E. Garcia, and the California legislature for their leadership to assure clean air, green jobs, and low carbon fuel options throughout California for decades to come.”
N.J. Considering Food Waste-to-Energy Legislation
By Tom Johnson, NJ.com.
The food waste from a local supermarket, restaurant, or catering hall could end up being the fuel that serves a source of renewable energy for New Jersey.
That's the goal of a bill moving through the Legislature, which would require large generators of garbage to separate and recycle food waste with the aim of converting it to energy.
The bill (S-771), approved by the Senate Environment and Energy Committee last week, would encourage composting and building more food-waste-to-energy facilities in the state.
Cummins Westport Begins Production of ISL G Near Zero Nat-Gas Engine
By Lauren Tyler, NGT News.
Cummins Westport Inc. has announced that production of the ISL G Near Zero (NZ) NOx natural gas engine has officially commenced and orders are now being processed.
According to the company, the ISL G NZ is the first mid-range engine in North America to receive emission certification from both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Air Resources Board (ARB) in California to meet the optional 0.02 g/bhp-hr NZ NOx Emissions standards eight years in advance of the 2023 California NZ NOx schedule, contributing to California Clean Air initiatives.
As previously reported, exhaust emissions of the ISL G NZ are 90% lower than the current EPA and ARB NOx limit and also meet the 2017 EPA greenhouse-gas (GHG) emission requirements.
President Clinton, President Trump: What Do They Mean for Fuel?
By Samantha Oller, Senior Editor/Fuels, CSP Magazine.
Two words that describe the 2016 presidential election: low energy.
Despite the passionate and at-times colorful conversation on immigration, national security and jobs, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican candidate Donald Trump have spent relatively little time discussing energy policy.
“Energy issues are not the first things out of their mouths—that’s a little disconcerting,” says Paige Anderson, director of government relations for NACS, Alexandria, Va. Energy used to be one of the top issues presidential candidates targeted in previous campaigns, says Anderson. Finding details on the candidates’ energy policy is a challenge in itself. At Clinton’s campaign page, energy is part of a wider discussion on climate change, and at Trump’s, it is part of a multibulleted economic proposal.
World's biggest defence company builds plant to make energy from landfill
By Lynda Delacey, Forbes
Lockheed Martin is making progress with its plan to be a global player in the clean energy market. Last month, executives at Lockheed Martin's Owego, New York plant cut the ribbon on a new self-sustaining bioenergy system that is helping power the facility, converting 3,560 tons of waste per year into electricity.
The waste-to-energy plant at Lockheed Martin, Owego, New York.(Credit: Lockheed Martin)
Lockheed Martin spokesperson Michael Friedman told New Atlas the company hopes that in time the system will provide a clean, scalable answer to the world's landfill and clean electricity problems.
While converting bio-waste into energy is not new, incineration is still the most popular way of achieving this. The problem is, using fire as a step in the process creates serious emission problems, especially in countries that are already struggling with air pollution.
California city uses RIN credits to repair roads
By REW Staff.
A city in California is using its Renewable Identification Number (RIN) credits generated by creating biofuel from organic waste to repair its roads, a report by the Manteca Bulletin says.
Manteca, California, has identified street repair as a legitimate expense for cost recovery in municipal garbage rates with the reason that one of the heaviest trucks that goes down most residential streets in the city is a municipal solid waste truck, the report says. But the proposed rate hike “suspends” the charge. In order to fund the road repairs, the city will funnel the money it receives from oil companies from the sale of RIN credits.
According to the report, RINs are credits that oil companies purchase to meet a federally mandated percentage of biofuel in their fuel production.
FedEx, Clean Energy Fuels opens CNG fueling station in Oklahoma City
By REW Staff, Renewable Energy from Waste.
The leaders of FedEx Corp, Memphis, Tennessee, Clean Energy Fuels Corp., Newport Beach, California, and the state of Oklahoma officially opened a compressed natural gas (CNG) station in Oklahoma City that will allow more than 100 FedEx Freight Class 8 trucks to use fast-fueling as well as time-fueling. Clean Energy also announced that it expects to supply the station with its Redeem renewable natural gas (RNG) vehicle fuel in the near future.
“As one of the largest logistics companies in the world, FedEx does its homework when charting a new course and their decision to open up a major CNG fueling center was no different,” says Andrew J. Littlefair, CEO and president of Clean Energy. “Led by Fred’s [Smith, CEO and chairman at FedEx] vision, the company has always had a commitment to operate on the highest sustainable level. Transitioning a portion of FedEx Freight’s fleet to a fuel that will substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions is another example of their leadership.”
Hydrogen fuel-station finder app launched by Air Liquide
By Stephen Edelstein, Green Car Reports.
Electric-car drivers can rely on several different locator apps to find nearby public charging stations as they travel.
While only a handful of public hydrogen fueling stations are operational at the moment, drivers of fuel-cell cars now have their own station-tracking app as well.
Hydrogen-infrastructure company Air Liquide launched the new app over the weekend, as part of the National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day event to promote fuel-cell vehicles.
BIO analysis finds no link between blend wall, RIN price spike
By Erin Voegele, Biomass Magazine.
The Biotechnology Innovation Organization recently released a white paper that analyzes U.S. EPA data, challenging the widely accepted assumption that the blend wall caused the 2013 spike in renewable identification number (RIN) prices.
The white paper, titled “The Myth of High RIN Prices as Proof of the Blend Wall,” analyzes data recently released by the EPA on renewable fuel standard (RFS) compliance between 2010 and 2013, which is the last year for which complete compliance data is currently available.
“The success of the renewable fuel standard has become distorted by the myth that U.S. refiners have encountered an unbreakable blend wall,” said Brent Erickson, executive vice president of BIO’s Industrial & Environmental Section. “Oil refiners, their champions in Congress, and even EPA have proposed changes to the RFS program based on this myth. Yet these changes to the RFS are aimed at solving a problem that never existed."
Canada to have carbon-cutting measures beyond pricing: minister
By Ethan Lou and Alistair Bell, Reuters.
Canada's federal government and its provinces have agreed they need emissions-cutting measures beyond the minimum price on carbon unveiled last week, and the government will announce those measures in the fall, a senior minister said on Sunday.
Speaking on the CTV broadcaster's "Question Period" politics talk show, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said the measures may include regulating energy efficiency in housing.
Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took power last November promising to do more to protect the environment, and last Wednesday Parliament ratified the Paris agreement to curb climate-warming emissions.
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