How Can Renewable Natural Gas Provide a Negative Carbon Impact?

BioRefineries/Renewable Fuel Production, Business News/Analysis, California, Feedstocks, Manure, Methane/Biogas, Not Agriculture, Opinions, Policy, Sustainability

March 9, 2020

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by Ashley Duplechien (ACT News/Trillium) Renewable natural gas is growing rapidly in the transportation fuel industry and decades of research confirms that it is a price-stable, low-carbon—and even carbon-negative—fuel option for fleets. —

The attention surrounding the benefits of renewable natural gas (RNG) is for good reason. The fuel can deliver negative emissions at an extremely low cost to consumers. Anything that good makes one wonder whether the science backs the claims. The truth is the science and economics couldn’t be clearer. The best news: commercial fleets stand to benefit with a stable, price-competitive, and carbon-negative fuel.

Emissions Accounting Backed by Decades of Research

Expert sources, including the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. EPA, California Air Resources Board (CARB), and respected institutions have spent decades measuring and documenting emissions from the industrial, agricultural and transport sectors of our economy. Today, standards including the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and those used by the federal government, measure emission flows in the same way that a business uses Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) to measure cash flow. These standards have been adopted by regulators and businesses to identify which activities are the biggest emitters and have the most serious effects on human health and the climate—targeting them for reduction in the same way a CEO targets operational improvement for savings.

The Math is Right, Renewable Natural Gas Can Result in Negative GHG Emissions

If industrial activities create greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, how can using RNG make those GHG emissions negative?

RNG is produced by capturing methane emitted from the breakdown of organic wastes in landfills, wastewater and farms. When methane emissions from these organic sources, which would have otherwise escaped into the environment, are instead captured, processed and converted into natural gas, they receive a credit for having not been released into the environment.

For instance, when RNG is recovered from dairy cow waste—a key source of climate-altering methane emissions—RNG has a negative carbon intensity rating, meaning it takes more carbon out of the environment than it produces. READ MORE

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