Fact Sheets

What is bioenergy and how is it used? An overview of the numerous benefits of bioenergy.

Bioenergy can play a critical role in reducing the most potent climate pollutants - methane from organic waste and black carbon from wildfire - while producing the lowest carbon fuels of any kind, generating renewable power, and reducing the emissions from wildfire, dairies and landfills.

California dairies generate more than half of the state's methane emissions, a powerful climate pollutant that could instead be converted to millions of gallons of carbon negative transportation fuel or hundreds of megawatts of renewable power.

Bioenergy from forest waste, especially dead trees from California's bark beetle epidemic, can help to reduce catastrophic wildfires while providing renewable power and low carbon fuels.

Organic waste like food and yard waste plus landfill gas together can produce nearly a billion gallons per year of low carbon transportation fuel or enough renewable energy to power more than a million homes in California.

Wastewater facilities can help California to meet its landfill diversion and clean energy goals by taking organic (food and yard) waste that would otherwise be landfilled and converting it to low carbon fuels and renewable power.