LISTEN: NPR Story on Landfill Gas to Power in Los Angeles

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KCRW – NPR’s affiliate in Los Angeles – aired this piece on the City of Glendale’s landfill gas to electricity project, which will produce enough renewable electricity to power 4,000 homes while cutting emissions of methane, a climate super pollutant. BAC’s Executive Director, Julia Levin, is quoted extensively in the story, highlighting the urgency of methane reductions, the benefits of using landfill gas in place of fossil fuels, and the need for renewable power that is available when solar and wind power are not.

LISTEN: “Turning Trash Into Electricity”

SoCalGas Announces the Largest Green Hydrogen Energy Infrastructure System In the U.S.

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SoCalGas has just announced plans to develop the largest green hydrogen infrastructure project in the country, known as the Angeles Link. The proposed Angeles Link green hydrogen system would drive deep decarbonization of dispatchable electric generation, hard-to-electrify industries, and heavy-duty transportation in the LA Basin. It will deliver green hydrogen in an amount equivalent to almost 25% of the natural gas SoCalGas delivers today, providing enough green hydrogen to displace up to 3 million gallons of diesel per day, helping to eliminate hazardous air pollutants, and enabling up to four natural gas power plants to convert to green hydrogen. It will also reduce smog forming pollution (NOx) by 25,000 tons per year.

The Angeles Link would support the integration of more renewable electricity resources like solar and wind and would significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from electric generation, industrial processes, heavy-duty trucks, and other hard-to-electrify sectors of the Southern California economy. The Angeles Link would also significantly decrease demand for natural gas, diesel, and other fossil fuels in the LA Basin, helping accelerate California’s and the region’s climate and clean air goals.

WATCH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kO2EhN5Jx8

SoCalGas Angeles (Green Hydrogen) LinkDownload

California Launches Climate Catalyst Fund for Advanced Technology Forest Biomass to Energy Projects

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The California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank (IBank), part of the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, is now accepting project proposals for a new state program to combat climate change. Dubbed the Climate Catalyst Fund, the program will jumpstart critical climate solutions through flexible, low-cost credit and credit support. The program is open to both private and public sector applicants and will be flexible in offering a range of financial instruments to support innovative forest biomass projects.

Starting with a $47 million fund, the Climate Catalyst Fund’s initial focus will be on projects that reduce wildfire threats through forest biomass management and utilization. Starting in 2022-23, the Climate Catalyst Fund expects to expand to include climate-smart agriculture projects.

For more information, visit: The Climate Catalyst Fund website.

BAC Members West Coast Biofuels and Kern Oil Featured in Renewable Fuels Article

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Th Bakersfield Californian highlights biofuels and other renewable fuels in this article, which also features a new project by West Coast Biofuel and comments from BAC’s Executive Director about the need for increased biofuels produced from organic waste.

READ: The Bakersfield Californian, “Renewable Fuel Production Heats Up in Kern“

Glasgow Climate Conference Underscores Importance of Bioenergy to Reduce Most Damaging Climate Pollutants

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The United Nations Climate Conference in Glasgow highlighted the urgency of reducing Short-Lived Climate Pollutants like methane and black carbon as the most effective steps to reduce global warming. As the head of the UN Environment Program stated, “Cutting methane is the strongest lever we have to slow climate change over the next 25 years . . . we need to urgently reduce methane emissions as much as possible this decade.”

In California, organic waste causes 87 percent of all methane emissions, which are 74 times more damaging to the climate than the carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuel burning. Open burning of forest and agricultural waste, wildfires, and diesel are the largest sources of black carbon emissions, which are 3,200 times more damaging to the climate than carbon dioxide on a 20-year time horizon.

On the positive side, reducing methane and black carbon benefit the climate right away. Reducing fossil fuels – while critically important in the long term – won’t begin to benefit the climate until 2050 or later. In other words, we have to do much more to reduce methane and black carbon to begin cooling the planet down right away. As Dr. V. Ramanathan, a climate scientist from UC San Diego says, reducing methane, black carbon, and other Short-Lived Climate Pollutants is “the last lever we have left to avoid catastrophic climate change.”

Bioenergy cuts methane emissions from landfill waste, wastewater treatment facilities, dairies and other livestock waste. It can also cut black carbon emissions from burning of agricultural and forest waste and from diesel. According to the California Air Resources Board, bioenergy cuts black carbon and methane emissions 98 percent compared to open burning.

For more information, see https://bendingthecurve.ucsd.edu/

Mote Announces Its First Wood Waste to Hydrogen and Carbon Sequestration Project

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Climate tech innovator Mote announced today it is establishing its first facility to convert wood waste into hydrogen fuel while capturing, utilizing, and sequestering carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions resulting from its process. It’s estimated that more than 500 million metric tons of wood and agricultural waste are generated every year in the U.S., which today is either disposed of via natural decay, landfills, or open-air burn, all of which return carbon to the atmosphere. With the engineering work of their first facility underway, Mote expects to produce approximately seven million kilograms of carbon-negative hydrogen and remove 150,000 metric tons of CO2 from the air annually. That’s equivalent to removing 32,622 cars off the road. Mote expects to start hydrogen production starting as soon as 2024.

“As the world’s first carbon removal project converting biomass to hydrogen, we are addressing the ever-growing demand for renewable hydrogen with a carbon-negative approach,” says co-founder and CEO Mac Kennedy. “Our pioneered technology directly supports California in its carbon-neutrality goals by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere with our wood waste conversion process. With this new facility, Mote is laying the groundwork for affordable hydrogen offerings on a global scale while also supercharging natural carbon removal processes.”

Mote’s proprietary integration of proven equipment in a novel process establishes this ground-breaking carbon removal and clean energy generation facility. Mote utilizes wood waste from farms, forestry, and other resources where it would otherwise be open-air burned for disposal, left to decompose, or sent to a landfill. Through gasification and subsequent treatment processes, the remaining carbon dioxide is extracted and permanently placed deep underground for ecologically safe storage.

To learn more, click here.

Raven SR Acquires Benicia Fabrication & Machine Inc to produce renewable hydrogen and other renewable fuels

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Raven SR, a waste-to-renewable fuels company, has acquired Benicia Fabrication & Machine Inc., which will construct several key components of Raven’s Steam/CO2 Reformer system as the company ramps up to meet increasing demand for green hydrogen and renewable synthetic fuels.

BFM, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, brings extensive experience in producing pressure vessels, heat exchangers and other crucial operational equipment for the upstream and downstream oil and gas as well as power and utilities sectors. The acquisition by Raven SR extends BFM’s engineering and equipment fabrication capabilities into the renewable fuels sector. BFM will fabricate the proprietary reactors of the Raven SR systems to be installed in 2022 for waste-to-energy projects in California and serve Raven’s expanding global project pipeline.

“By acquiring an American firm with a record of success in the energy sector, we will reliably deliver our renewable fuels production units to a growing market,” said Matt Murdock, Raven SR CEO. “Companies and consumers are demanding responses to climate change sooner rather than later and our acquisition of BFM means we can meet the challenge now and mitigate manufacturing disruptions.”

By acquiring a high-quality specialized fabricator moving into the green energy fabrication, Raven will ensure quality control of its production units, maintain competitive pricing of its retail fuels and manage its equipment supply chain in order to successfully meet project demand.

BFM will retain its name and its CEO Carmelo Santiago, P.E., will become vice president of manufacturing at Raven and president of BFM as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Raven SR. BFM will also continue to serve its existing customers in the refining and utility sectors.

“Becoming part of Raven SR launches us into renewable energy, giving us the immediate opportunity to join the energy transition,” Santiago said. “By combining our mechanical engineering know-how and Raven SR’s chemical engineering advances, we can serve a broader array of customers across the energy spectrum.”

For more information, visit Raven SR.

WATCH: CalBio’s Dairy Waste to Cleaned Biogas to Zero Emission Vehicle Power

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See California Bioenergy cut the ribbon on California’s first dairy manure to fuel cell project.  The project is using Bloom Energy fuel cells to generate carbon negative power for electric vehicle charging.  This groundbreaking project cuts methane emissions, one of the most powerful climate pollutants that President Biden and scientists around the world say is the most urgent step we can take to slow global warming.  By converting dairy manure to cleaned biogas that is used in a Bloom fuel cell, the project is providing zero emission power that can be used in place of fossil fuels, cutting air pollution as well as protecting the climate.

See:  https://abc30.com/bar-20-dairy-carbon-footprint-business/11202954/

Yosemite Clean Energy Secures site for Wood Waste to Hydrogen Production

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Yosemite Clean Energy intends to break ground on its forest waste to green hydrogen and biomethane plant in early to mid-2022. Yosemite is a sustainable biofuels company devoted to the stewardship of our planet’s natural resources as well as the empowerment of local forest and farm communities to democratize energy production.  Yosemite’s biofuels production facilities will utilize proven Austrian-based gasification technology to produce commercial scale carbon-negative green fuels.  The Oroville plant will be the flagship dual-bed gasification facility in the Americas, following over 100,000 hours of commercial run-time across developed plants in Europe, Japan, and South Korea.

California has an estimated 35 million tons of waste woody biomass available annually, currently left to burn, decay, and decompose, emitting immense amounts of greenhouse gases and black carbon. Yosemite will sustainably convert this biomass into syngas, from which carbon negative green hydrogen and RNG is produced using downstream technology already widely commercialized in the US. These-carbon negative fuels will be used to support California’s bold emission targets as it transitions to a carbon neutral economy.

Tom Hobby, the company’s president, stated, “Yosemite and our team of engineers, forest and farm professionals, legal, marketing, and financial teams will lead the company to become the first wood waste biomass plant to produce commercial scale carbon negative green hydrogen and RNG for the California fuel markets.” One plant will produce an estimated 31,000 kg per day of RNG and 12,200 kg per day of green hydrogen. Over the next 10 years, Yosemite plans to have biomass energy plants across California and North America.

Each Yosemite biofuels plant will be locally owned by farmers and forest landowners, who in return will provide wood waste, gathered at the end of the orchard’s lifecycle or through sustainable forest management. Vice-President for Business Development Robert Jackson said, “This is new. This type of ownership in biofuels facilities like ours is the democratization of clean energy. We’re providing an all-new mineral right from a waste stream and converting it to a revenue stream for farmers and forest communities.”

To learn more, go to www.yosemiteclean.com.

San Joaquin Renewables Secures $165 Million for Agricultural Waste to Energy Project

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San Joaquin Renewables (SJR) announced today that it reached an agreement with Cresta Fund Management and Silverpeak Energy Partners to invest up to $165 million to develop and construct a biomass to renewable natural gas (“RNG”) project near McFarland, California. Frontline BioEnergy, a leading provider of waste and biomass gasification solutions, is developing the project, which will take orchard residuals and shells from San Joaquin Valley farms and convert them into RNG that will be sold as transportation fuel. The project will also sequester carbon dioxide in an EPA Class VI sequestration well located on the project site. When completed, SJR’s RNG facility will replace the current practice of open burning of agricultural waste with an enclosed system that will produce renewable biomethane and capture and store carbon dioxide.  The biomethane will be sold for vehicle fuel to replace diesel in heavy duty trucks.  By reducing open burning and diesel use, the project will provide huge benefits for the climate and air quality.

To learn more, visit:  https://sjrgas.com/