RNG NEWS
Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.Viridi Partners with American Organic Energy on Waste-to-RNG Project
Viridi Energy has partnered with American Organic Energy to develop one of the largest food waste-to-renewable natural gas projects in the United States. The project is expected to convert 210,000 tons of waste per year – which is equivalent to the entire annual food waste of Dallas, Texas – into clean energy and agriculture products.
Located in Yaphank, New York, the AOE facility represents a historic step toward circularity in waste disposal, housing the first anaerobic digester to process food waste in the New York City metropolitan area. The project will divert food waste from landfills located up to 300 miles away and transform it into RNG, via anaerobic digestion, and into other renewable products, such as fertilizer. The project will generate emissions reductions equivalent to nearly 100,000 tons of CO2 per year and is projected to produce renewable fuels equivalent to 10 million gallons of gasoline annually.
Renewable Natural Gas From Corn Stover
When DuPont shut down its cellulosic ethanol plant in 2017 after years of effort and $225 million in investment, it looked like the process of converting corn stover to renewable energy was a failure.
Then the Germans took over.
In 2018, Verbio North America, a subsidiary of Verbio Vereinigte BioEnergie in Germany, bought the plant from DuPont and began its conversion. Verbio, though, wasn't looking at cellulosic ethanol, but saw an opportunity instead to convert corn stover to renewable natural gas (RNG).
TotalEnergies To Supply Certified Sustainable Biomethane to Saint-Gobain
TotalEnergies has signed a 100 GW biomethane purchase agreement with Saint-Gobain for a three-year period starting in 2024.
The biomethane will be produced by TotalEnergies at its BioBearn biomethane plant, which came on stream at the beginning of the year and whose production is certified sustainable by ISCC under the highest sustainability criteria of the European Union REDII Directive. TotalEnergies is one of the very first producers to obtain this certification in France.
By acquiring the Guarantees of Origin, and thanks to their sustainable certification, Saint-Gobain will be able to attest, within the framework of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, to the decarbonization of its energy consumption in France. This contract is also an example of a purely commercial sale, i.e., non-subsidized, of biomethane.
Dairy Technology in Ellington Converts Manure to Natural Gas
A fifth-generation dairy farm is the first in the state to invest in a methane digester that converts cow manure into natural gas.
“We’re just trying to make a difference in the ag world and trying to take the farm to the future – that’s really our goal,” said Seth Bahler, CEO of Oakridge Dairy Farm.
Vanguard Renewables Strikes Largest Open-Market RNG Deal Yet With AstraZeneca
Vanguard Renewables announced an agreement with AstraZeneca on Tuesday to supply RNG for the pharmaceutical company’s U.S. operations. AstraZeneca began purchasing renewable natural gas from Vanguard on June 1 for its Newark, Delaware, campus, and by 2026 could acquire 650,000 mmBtus of energy annually.
The business-to-business agreement on the voluntary market is Vanguard’s largest to date and will involve three of its farm-based anaerobic digesters. The company has been working to scale up its on-farm digestion capacity after it was acquired by BlackRock for roughly $700 million last year.
The 15-year agreement is one of the largest ever RNG purchases on the voluntary market in North America, said Sam Lehr, manager of sustainability and markets policy at the Coalition for Renewable Natural Gas.
AstraZeneca To Decarbonize U.S. Footprint by Turning Cow Manure Into Renewable Natural Gas
In a first for the pharma sector, AstraZeneca is partnering with Vanguard Renewables to use farm-sourced renewable natural gas to power all U.S. drug-manufacturing sites by the end of 2026
Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca will tap renewable natural gas made from cow manure and food waste to sharply reduce its carbon footprint at U.S. operations starting now and over the next few years, the company announced Tuesday.
Turning Waste Gas to Clean Energy: Brooklyn’s Newtown Creek Wastewater Plant Converts Harmful Methane to Renewable Natural Gas Fuel
One of the miraculous things the NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) does to make life possible for the 8.8 million residents of this city is to process 1.3 billion gallons of sewage daily across its 14 wastewater plants. But they can do even more for New York by harnessing a byproduct of the wastewater treatment process and using it for renewable energy. This enables wastewater plants to fight climate change, divert waste from landfills, and improve air quality and respiratory health.
The Newtown Creek plant in Greenpoint, the city’s largest wastewater treatment plant, is already demonstrating how this works. Its iconic egg-shaped tanks, called anaerobic digesters, process sewage sludge and food waste and capture the methane biogases emitted as the waste decomposes. In the past, you would have also seen a flame atop a tall stack, where excess methane that wasn’t used to heat the plant was “flared,” i.e., lit on fire.
GFL Environmental and OPAL Fuels Complete Construction of Renewable Natural Gas Facility at Arbor Hills Landfill
GFL Environmental and OPAL Fuels today announced that they have completed construction of their new RNG production facility, Emerald RNG. The parties held a ribbon cutting ceremony earlier today to mark the occasion at GFL’s Arbor Hills landfill in Michigan, where the facility is located.
Patrick Dovigi, GFL’s founder and CEO, said, “The completion of construction of the largest of our landfill gas to RNG projects is an important step for GFL toward achieving our ambition for a low-carbon future. This RNG project advances our own sustainability goals by reducing GHG emissions from both our landfills and our fleet, as well as the goals of our customers, by avoiding emissions through the beneficial reuse of RNG to displace virgin fuel applications.”
OCI Global Fuels First Ever Green Methanol-Powered Container Vessel
OCI Global has announced it is fueling the first ever green methanol-powered container ship in a new partnership with A.P. Moller-Maersk. OCI will provide ISCC certified green biomethanol to power the maiden voyage of Maersk’s first dual-fueled container ship, in a pioneering step towards the decarbonization of global shipping.
The journey demonstrates OCI’s unique capacity to supply marine customers with end-to-end green methanol solutions in major global bunkering locations, and further supports green methanol as the leading choice today for decarbonizing the marine sector, which is responsible for 3% of global GHG emissions.
California Landfill is Turning Food Waste into Renewable Energy
Food waste is a huge issue for landfills and the environment, but one company in California is working to digest food waste into renewable natural gas.
Looking at satellite images, the biggest methane producers in the state of California are landfills, which is due to the sheer amount of food waste in the state’s landfills.
Victor Valley Wastewater Reclamation Authority and Anaergia, a renewable energy company, are teaming up to demonstrate how wastewater facilities that are already in place can be converted into resource recovery centers.
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