Biogas Now & Beyond

by Anna Simet (Biomass Magazine) Market momentum, potential and policy were some of the main discussion topics at the virtual Biogas Americas conference. -- ... With 2,200-plus operating systems in all 50 states, the U.S. biogas market seems sizeable. According to the American Biogas Council’s tally, it currently consists of roughly 273 on-farm systems, 1,269 wastewater systems, 66 food scrap systems and 645 landfill systems. ABC Executive Director Patrick Serfass provided a snapshot of the industry during the Biogas Americas conference introduction, emphasizing the industry’s vast potential, which is not only based on the estimate that there is potential for more than 15,000 more systems among all categories, but renewable natural gas (RNG) upgrading possibilities of existing electricity facilities as well. “178 of the operating projects are RNG,” he said. “It’s interesting to look at how many [RNG] projects we have this year—the number is changing by the day and increasing very quickly. There are electricity-generating projects across the country and many are being upgraded, but there are a lot of new projects as well.”

Serfass’s industry overview was a fitting segue into a conversation with Brightmark CEO Bob Powell, a former director of ABC, who discussed the company’s tremendous momentum in the biogas space, as well as insights on project development, partnerships and how the industry should, in a united fashion, move forward. “Ultimately, our mission is to reimagine waste,” Powell said.

Powell discussed Brightmark’s current work in plastic recycling, which is centered on a technology that he said was invented and patented nearly 20 years ago. From numbers 1 to 7 plastics to Styrofoam containers, Powell said the pyrolysis-based platform can convert materials back into useable products, including transportation fuels, motor oils, paraffin waxes and more.

Moving on to the topic of RNG, Powell said the company has projects under construction from coast to coast of the U.S., a combination of new builds and upgrades of existing power projects. Operating projects, aside from a poultry litter-to-combined-heat-and-power project in Sumter, South Carolina, are all dairy manure, Powell said, which are on-farm or in farming communities.

“When we started from ground zero five years ago, we had two to three people, and now we have over 100 strong.

Outside of Brightmark, Powell said, the industry needs to focus on growing its collective team, meaning attracting people who are not already in the space.

The challenge in this, Powell reiterated, is having training framework in place for new people. He pointed to the American Biogas Council’s educational programs, which he said “are really awesome, in fact, a lot of our folks attended the operator trainings early on, and they were very valuable.”

Finally, when asked about partnering with larger players like Brightmark has, Powell emphasized how critical it is to have a long-term—and backup—plan.

As for other types of untapped or underutilized resources, Dannan said poultry litter is a more difficult feedstock to gather, manage and digest from a physical perspective, but it’s also tougher to acquire from a business model perspective. “That’s why it hasn’t taken off so much.”

Wine agreed, adding that swine projects also pose challenges. “What’s nice for dairy is that it’s a pretty steady cycle—they eat feed, manure is produced and then it goes into the capturing system ... it’s more of a seamless process and easier to manage than poultry and hog facilities. Hogs don’t produce as much—there is a lot more hog, but a lot less gas production. A cow does about 120, 150 gallons of RNG a year, and a hog is significantly lower than that, with generally lower volatile solids.”

One of the final questions panelists were asked is about the possibility of a standard way of measuring CI outside of California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard considering other states are working to develop programs, whether it will be a generic measurement, and how it could impact the voluntary market. “Unfortunately, it is [currently] a very diversified market in terms of modeling,” said Niznik. He pointed to Canada’s CI programming model, and how it elected to implement a different accounting system than that of states like California or Oregon, and even different than British Columbia’s. “It does seem to be one of the problems, but it can be overcome …it is hard to get people to agree.”

Turner agreed that it would be a good thing to adopt an industry standard, but reiterated how difficult it could be. “We have to remember the Greek calculator is a well-to-wheel analysis for transportation fuels, so when it goes into other uses like RNG for heat or as feedstock for other types of products, that calculation changes,” she said. “But can we get to something that is covering all those different uses? I think we can, we’ve got lots of smart people in this industry working toward it, and everyone is moving toward carbon accounting. And with that, you need to measure it, have your data and know what it says, how it impacts your emissions and total CI ... there are a lot of different ways to model it.”

Wine had a slightly different view, stating that he believes standardization won’t drive the market at this point. “We need regulatory programs to be adopted in other states,” he said. “The standardization will come, but it’s a long view to get there … In the grand scheme of things, as an industry we need to develop more programs and regulatory framework outside of just California.

Washington has got theirs, but we need New York to be successful with getting that adopted for next year, and we need the other states like Minnesota and New Mexico—there are probably eight states currently looking at adopting something in next 24 to 36 months—to do more of that, which will help continue to drive project development.” READ MORE