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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.

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”

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/

CalMatters Piece on Need to Convert Food Waste to Energy

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Andrew Benedek, founder and CEO of Anaergia, published this important piece in CalMatters on the need to convert food waste into renewable fuels.

Why we must turn food waste into a renewable fuel

As the fight against climate change becomes more urgent, focus has increased on methane emissions, with U.S. climate envoy John Kerry tweeting that cutting methane is “the single most effective strategy we have to reduce global warming in the near term” to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Why? Because methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Reducing these emissions now can have a much-needed, fast-acting effect.

To most people, the obvious source of methane emissions is oil and gas production. But another part of the problem is right under our noses: our garbage.

When the food scraps, yard waste and other biodegradable stuff we throw out is deposited in landfills, it emits methane as it breaks down. Globally, landfills and wastewater emit 67 million metric tons of methane — that’s 20% of methane emissions, according to the United Nations. Despite the extent of this problem, there are some naysayers who dismiss the idea of turning food scraps and other waste into energy, calling it a “sham” and even “the ultimate red herring.”

But as someone who has dedicated my career to developing technologies to support environmental sustainability, I can assure you that diverting waste and using it for fuel is a legitimate climate solution.

Since 2008, when I sold my water treatment technology to the General Electric Co., I have focused on this relatively simple way to address climate change: capturing methane emitting from our societies’ waste before it wreaks planet-warming havoc and using it to replace fossil natural gas.

Here in California — where half if what we throw away is food, yard clippings and other organic waste — landfills are the primary source of methane emissions. That’s right, greater than those from the oil and gas industry.

Over the last few years, aerial surveys have revealed the extent of the problem. The journal Nature published the results of fly-over assessments showing that “Methane point-source emissions in California are dominated by landfills (41 per cent).” Thankfully, California’s lawmakers and regulators are addressing the issue.

Beginning in just a few weeks, all municipalities will be required to ensure most food and yard waste is kept out of landfills. By 2025, 75% of all organic waste must be diverted from landfills, ensuring that methane emissions from buried refuse are greatly reduced. The regulations require instead that 15 million tons of organic waste be either composted or anaerobically digested. This digestion process creates fertilizer and renewable natural gas that is molecularly the same as the fossil natural gas used to heat homes and generate electricity.

The potential results? If California eliminated the methane emitted from landfills today, we’d prevent more than 255,000 metric tons of methane from going to the atmosphere — equal to more than 21.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (when figuring in the short-term potency of methane). To put this more simply, doing so would have the same climate benefit of taking nearly 4.7 million cars off California’s roads — more than 31% of all passenger vehicles registered in the state.

And there’s a benefit beyond cutting methane emissions. The renewable natural gas (also called biomethane) produced from our garbage and sewage provides a much-needed carbon negative fuel. Society needs renewable fuels, because some things simply can’t be electrified and powered by solar and wind. Electricity cannot create the high heat needed to make steel or concrete or many other manufacturing processes, for example.

Of course, removing this pernicious half of our waste and turning it into fuel will be more expensive than what we are doing now. But when considering ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions, diverting waste from landfills is a relatively low-cost option, according to the United Nations.

Across the United States, more than 43% of what gets sent to landfills is either food waste, yard clippings or paper/cardboard. If we were to take California’s policies across the nation, it would have the effect of eliminating the equivalent of more than 75 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, or taking more than 16.3 million cars off American roads.

So let’s take pride in our leadership in reducing methane emissions, California. It’s a big deal. But let’s also work to fight for similar action across the nation.”