California awards $18.7 million to CalBio and Maas Energy to Reduce Dairy Methane

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The California Department of Food and Agriculture just awarded $18.7 million dollars to BAC members California Bioenergy and Maas Energy for a total of 14 new dairy digesters in California. Together, these 14 projects will cut greenhouse gas emissions by almost 2 million metric tons over the next 10 years. Even more importantly for the climate, dairy digesters avoid methane emissions, which are many times more damaging to the climate than the carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuel burning. Climate scientists have said that methane reductions are the most critical step we can take to address climate change.

According to the California Air Resources Board, the state’s investments in dairy digesters are also the most cost-effective of all of the state’s investments in reducing carbon emissions – on average, dairy digesters cut carbon emissions for the tiny cost of just $9 per ton, compared to an average cost of $75 per ton and some measures costing hundreds or even thousands of dollars per ton of carbon reduction.

CalBio and Maas Energy have led the development of dairy digesters in California and are leading the state in methane reductions, as well as providing carbon negative fuels and power. By providing carbon negative energy, they are also helping to meet California’s goal of carbon neutrality.

For more information about the grants and CDFA’s dairy digester program, click here.

WATCH: Mainspring Energy Converts Landfill Gas to electricity

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WATCH local news coverage of Mainspring Energy’s linear generator, which is converting landfill methane to renewable electricity in Yolo County. Using its non-combustion technology, Mainspring can reduce methane emissions and provide renewable electricity.

According to climate scientists around the world, cutting methane and other Short-Lived Climate Pollutants is the most urgent step we can take to address climate change because it begins to benefit the climate right away. Steps to reduce fossil fuel burning, on the other hand, take decades to begin to benefit the climate. Cutting methane and other SLCP emissions buys us time until fossil fuel reductions begin to benefit the climate. SLCP reductions also benefit public health since SLCPs are also powerful air pollutants.

Learn more about Mainspring Energy and its linear generator technology here.

Raven SR Announces Agreement to Produce Sustainable Aviation Fuels from Organic Waste

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Raven SR Inc. (Raven SR), a renewable fuels company, and Emerging Fuels Technology (EFT) have signed a agreement to integrate their respective technologies into an advanced system for producing sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel from organic waste and biogas.

The resulting production platform will include Raven SR’s patented Steam/CO2 Reformer process and EFT’s patented Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and Maxx Jet™ / Maxx Diesel™ upgrading technology. This combination will allow Raven SR to produce high-quality synthetic fuels at higher than currently feasible volumes within small, modular systems. The Raven SR technology is a non-combustion thermal process for converting organic waste and landfill gas to hydrogen and Fischer-Tropsch synfuels.

“We expect to go to market on an accelerated timeframe for sustainable aviation fuels and other renewable Fischer-Tropsch fuels by incorporating EFT’s well-regarded catalyst/reactor technologies,” said Matt Murdock, CEO of Raven SR.

“The collaboration with EFT, particularly their 75 BPD and 500 BPD systems, which will match up well with our standard systems, will enable us to produce advanced fuels from waste on a local basis.”

Under their agreement, Raven SR and EFT will work together to optimize their process to maximize production while further reducing emissions. The Master License Agreement will enable Raven SR to deploy its technology with EFT technology on a global scale, producing liquid fuels more quickly and nearer to market.

“This MOU represents a meeting of the minds and facilitates a means to produce premium synthetic Fischer-Tropsch fuels from waste materials” said Kenneth Agee, Founder and President of EFT. “We share similar ambitions of accelerating the production of renewable fuels with negative carbon intensity on a cost-competitive basis. We are very impressed with the first-rate quality of Raven SR’s syngas and the efficiency of its process.”

Raven SR’s technology is sufficiently flexible to provide an ideal source of syngas for Fischer-Tropsch technology. Raven SR’s technology is designed to produce more hydrogen per ton of waste than competing processes, making the cost per kg of hydrogen competitive, which has been a challenge of adopting hydrogen as a fuel source – and bringing long-term and integrated value to Raven. The technology can also be implemented quickly, meeting demand faster and closer to the market. Raven SR’s unique process can also convert waste to produce other renewable energy products, such as sustainable aviation fuel, synthetic liquid fuels (diesel, Jet A, mil-spec, JP-8), additives and solvents (such as methanol, butanol, and naphtha).

This collaboration with EFT provides Raven SR with the latest proprietary Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and Maxx Jet™/ Maxx Diesel™ upgrading technology to create a scalable, sustainable path for converting syngas into very high yields of high-quality jet fuel and diesel fuel products.

About Raven SR

Raven SR, headquartered in Wyoming, transforms biomass, mixed municipal solid waste, bio-solids, sewage, medical waste, and natural or biogas into renewable fuels. Using its proprietary, non-combustion, non-catalytic “Steam/CO2 Reformation” technology, Raven SR dependably produces a hydrogen-rich syngas regardless of feedstock utilized. Raven SR, led by co-founders Matt Murdock and Matt Scanlon, is committed to adding value to local resources and communities while responsibly reducing greenhouse gases and achieving a low carbon economy. By using modular systems and producing low air emissions, their systems can be located closer to customers and feedstock, creating local fuel from local waste for local mobility. For more information, visit ravensr.com

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.