Report: Global Biogas Market to Reach $50 billion by 2026

By Ben Messenger, Waste Management World.

Due to mounting concerns over depleting fossil reserves and the environmental impact of conventional fuels, global biogas revenues are expected to grow at a steady 6.5% CAGR from nearly $24.5 Billion in 2015 to around $48.8 billion in 2026, according to a new report from Future Market Insights. 

During the forecast period 2016-2026, the authors stated that between 2016 and 2026, the global biogas revenues will double, with Asia-Pacific (APAC) and Latin America among key regions fuelling demand.

The APAC biogas market is predicted to grow relatively fast at 9.2% CAGR, while Latin America will account for over 50% of the global biogas revenues.

In North America, adoption of biogas plants was forecast to drop considerably, owing to rising preference for solar power in the US. By 2026-end, North America’s biogas plant was predicted to be valued over $9.6 billion.

GOP pushing 3 bills in Congress to restrain federal regulations

By Carolyn Lochhead, San Francisco Chronicle

WASHINGTON — Freed from the constraint of a presidential veto, Republicans are moving rapidly on industry-backed legislation that could paralyze the government’s ability to protect the environment, public health and virtually everything else federal agencies regulate. 

The onslaught began last week with a trio of House bills — two of them approved and sent to the Senate — that would gut the administrative process used for decades to implement the practical details of such landmark laws as the Food and Drug Act, the Clean Air Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act. 

The centerpiece of the Republican action was the REINS Act, which cleared the House on Friday, with an amendment that extended its reach to include all regulations adopted by federal agencies within the past 10 years. Approved on a largely party-line vote, it swiftly drew companion Senate legislation.

The act would require any rule costing industry more than $100 million — a dollar figure that amounts to any significant regulation — to be submitted to Congress. If either chamber fails to approve the rule within 70 days, the rule would die.

The rules could affect everything from food labeling and nutrition requirements for restaurants to performance standards for residential wood stoves and energy efficiency standards in grocery store coolers to banking and public health. One major rule adopted after the financial crisis requires banks to hold larger cash reserves. A 2014 rule cleans up tailpipe emissions from cars. A 2009 rule for the first time allowed regulation of tobacco.

The regulations result from acts of Congress, which approve laws such as the Clean Air Act or the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul bill, but leave the regulations that serve to implement the laws to experts in the federal agencies. As a practical matter, the Republican bills would shift regulatory power from executive branch agencies bound by scientific and legal protocols to the political realm of Congress.

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Gov. Jerry Brown pushes to extend cap-and-trade program with new budget proposal

By Chris Megerian, The Los Angeles Times.

Gov. Jerry Brown announced Tuesday his plan to prod lawmakers to solidify California's emissions cap-and-trade program, the centerpiece of the state's climate change agenda. 

Pushing forward in California has only become more important with federal action on global warming less likely under President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration, the governor said. 

"Given the fact that the federal government is going in the opposite direction, I would think that Californians wants to strengthen their own commitment," he said during a Capitol news conference where he unveiled his budget plans. "We ought to continue and not fall back on our efforts." 

Cap-and-trade works by requiring companies to purchase permits in order to emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, creating a financial incentive to reduce pollution. The program is currently mired in a legal battle over whether it's an unconstitutional tax, and a court date is scheduled for later this month. 

Brown wants to eliminate the uncertainty stemming from  the lawsuit and other legal questions  about whether the program can continue past 2020. His plan requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of the Legislature, the legal standard for approving taxes.

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US Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office publishes biofuels report

By Biofuels International.

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) announced the publication of a report, titled Biofuels and Bioproducts from Wet and Gaseous Waste Streams: Challenges and Opportunities.

According to the US department, the report is the first comprehensive assessment of the resource potential and technology opportunities provided by feedstocks, including wastewater treatment-derived sludge and biosolids, animal manure, food waste, inedible fats and greases, biogas, and carbon dioxide streams.

These feedstocks can be converted into renewable natural gas, diesel, and aviation fuels, or into valuable bioproducts.

Complementary to the ‘2016 Billion-Ton Report’, this new resource assessment, conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, concludes that wet and gaseous organic waste streams represent a substantial and underutilized set of feedstocks for biofuels and biopower.

The analysis found that the United States has the potential to use 77 million dry tons of wet waste per year, which would generate about 1,300 trillion British thermal units (Btu) of energy.

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Disagreements Over Oregon Clean Fuels Program Could Resurface this Year Amid Need for Transportation Package

By Gordon Friedman, Oregon Live.

Weeks before lawmakers return to the Capitol for what's shaping up as a difficult 2017 session, one of their signature goals is facing serious challenges. 

A special committee that toured the state for months to craft plans for shoring up Oregon's transportation system has yet to agree on what a multimillion-dollar proposal should look like. They don't know which projects it will include. They can't say how those projects will be financed. 

They also aren't sure they can guarantee state officials will spend the money wisely. Instead, they're waiting for an audit that will tell them whether the Oregon Department of Transportation can manage a larger budget. 

Those concerns bubbled from interviews with lawmakers and during a hearing last month where legislators aired a long list of priorities alongside worries that reaching a complicated deal could take months. Because a deal would likely include a gas tax increase, any package would need bipartisan support. 

"It is troublesome that so much time has elapsed describing the problem," said Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, a key voice on transportation issues, "and we are still without a working draft of a bill."

Some of the problems that plagued a much-hyped plan two years ago -- chiefly, partisan disagreements over clean fuel standards -- may resurface this year. Lawmakers may also find tension as they face another looming problem: how to plug a $1.7 billion budget hole. 

And even if lawmakers do manage a deal, interest groups could rebel over any tax hikes, sending the package to voters.

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Wastewater Bioenergy Project Selected by Department of Energy

By Carrie W. Capuco, WE&RF.

(Alexandria, VA) - A consortium led by the Water Environment & Reuse Foundation (WE&RF) has been selected by the Department of Energy for award negotiations to begin Phase 1 design and planning for a pilot plant to produce clean hydrocarbon fuels at a municipal wastewater treatment facility. The project will use breakthrough technology to produce fuels such as gasoline, jet fuel, diesel and renewable natural gas from wastewater solids. 

The Central Contra Costa Sanitary District, near Oakland, California, will host the pilot system. The consortium includes WE&RF representing many of the 16,000 wastewater systems in the USA, Genifuel Corporation with technology from DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Merrick & Company, Southern California Gas Company, Tesoro Corporation, Metro Vancouver, MicroBio Engineering, Brown and Caldwell, and over a dozen utility partners.

The technology, called Hydrothermal Processing, converts waste solids from a wastewater treatment plant into biocrude oil and methane gas in less than one hour. The biocrude oil replaces fossil oil, providing green fuels with nearly zero net new carbon emissions. The methane gas can be used in the same ways as fossil natural gas. Biocrude oil produced in the system will be refined in an existing refinery, while the methane gas will be sold for transport in the gas pipeline system or used at the pilot plant to offset power needs elsewhere in the plant. If fully implemented in wastewater treatment operations across the U.S., the technology will produce more than two billion gallons of gasoline equivalent per year. The system also produces fertilizer byproducts. 

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'Food Power': How many apple cores does it take to power a light bulb?

By Cole Rosengren, Waste Dive.

Tackling food waste may seem daunting for the average consumer. Date labels can be confusing, shopping habits can seem hard to change and it may seem like one person's action can't make a difference when the problem is talked about on a national or global scale.

Save On Energy, an online marketplace, is trying to change that by putting food waste into more personal terms with a new project on energy usage dubbed "Food Power." Based on data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which estimates that approximately 1.3 billion metric tons of food produced for human consumption is wasted every year, the project uses North America's average per capita rate of 105 kilograms (approx. 231 pounds) as its baseline.

Using the conversion formula for Impact Bioenergy's HORSE AD25 microdigester (10 pounds of food waste can generate between one to two kilowatt hours of electricity) the team extrapolated this data into household energy usage terms on a larger scale. Impact Bioenergy confirmed for Waste Dive that this formula could be applicable for demonstration purposes, with larger digesters operating closer to the two kilowatt hour level.

The logistics of collecting all of this food waste, let alone siting and permitting large-scale digesters to process it, is of course much more complicated. The Save On Energy team recognized this and said their main goal was to frame the issue in a more consumer-oriented way. As noted in the ReFED report, homes account for 43% of the food wasted by weight in the U.S. at a financial cost of $144 billion.

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EPA Extends Comment Period On REGS Rule And RFS Point Of Obligation Petitions

By National Law Review.

Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published two announcements in the Federal Register regarding an extension of the comment period for the proposed Renewables Enhancement and Growth Support (REGS) rule and the proposed denial of petitions for the rulemaking to change the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) Point of Obligation.

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Wisconsin county issues RFP for landfill gas project

By Waste Today Staff.

Dane County, Wisconsin, is requesting proposals for fabrication, delivery, installation and start-up of a biogas cleaning system to convert landfill gas (LFG) into high-Btu biomethane at the Dane County Landfill Site #2, located at 7102 U.S. Highway 12, Madison, Wisconsin, per information provided by the U.S. EPA Landfill Methane Outreach Program (LMOP). Only firms with capabilities, experience and expertise with similar projects should submit proposals. Performance and payment bond are required for this project. 

Dane County will be the owner/operator of the biogas cleaning system and retain rights to all the biomethane. The biogas cleaning system will be designed to have a flexible operating range, with a minimum flow of 500 scfm and maximum of 1,750 scfm LFG, and must be easily expanded in the future, up to 2,600 scfm LFG. The primary function of the biogas cleaning equipment will be to achieve the pipeline quality standards set by ANR Pipeline Co. 

Dane County has a power purchase agreement expiring in 2019 for LFG electricity produced at Site #2. The County plans for the new pipeline injection project to replace the electricity project at the beginning of 2019.

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New Study Improves Understanding of Natural Gas Vehicle Methane Emissions

By Joe Rudek and Jason Mathers, Environmental Defense Fund.

Many commercial fleet operators have considered switching their fleet vehicles from diesel to natural gas to take advantage of the growing abundance of natural gas and reduced emissions. Natural gas trucks have the potential to reduce nitrogen oxides emissions (NOx) from freight trucks and buses.

Yet, adopting the emission reduction technologies and practices needed to curb the methane escaping during the production, transport and delivery of natural gas is critical to unlock the full environmental potential of these vehicles. Methane, the main component of natural gas, is a potent greenhouse gas released to the atmosphere at every step from production wells to the vehicle fuel tanks. Even small amounts of methane emitted across the natural gas supply chain can undermine the climate benefit of fuel-switching vehicles to natural gas for some period of time, as EDF research has shown.

A newly published scientific study, led by researchers with West Virginia University at the Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emissions, measured methane emissions from heavy-duty natural gas-powered vehicles and refueling stations, and is greatly expanding what we know about emissions from natural gas-fueled vehicles. The study is the first project in EDF’s coordinated methane research series to analyze where and by how much methane emissions occur during natural gas end uses.

The WVU study found that emissions from the vehicle tailpipe and engine crankcase were the highest methane sources, representing roughly 30 and 39% (respectively) of total pump to wheels (PTW) emissions. Fortunately, engines with closed crankcases have recently been certified by EPA, avoiding the single largest source of methane emissions from these vehicles.

Fueling station methane emissions were reported to be relatively low, representing about 12% of total PTW emissions. WVU researchers based the fueling station emission estimates on the assumption that liquefied natural gas (LNG) stations have sufficient sales volume to effectively manage boil off gases, or the fuel lost as vapors when the LNG heats above its boiling point. Without alternative methods to manage boil off gas, low sales volume risks large methane releases.

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