RNG’s Growing Role in Decarbonization Strategies

by Sam Lehr, David Cox and Mike Alaimo (RNG Coalition/Biomass Magazine) Renewable natural gas (RNG) has become an increasingly important part America's push toward clean energy sources and technology. -- ...

Renewable natural gas (RNG) has become an increasingly important part of this future as a proven way to reduce our carbon footprint. Across the country, dairy farms, wastewater recovery facilities, landfills and other entities that process aggregated organic material are using methane capture and treating technologies to produce a sustainable energy resource that is displacing fossil fuel. Gasses that would otherwise be destroyed or enter the atmosphere as fugitive pollution are now purified for use in household and industrial thermal applications, to generate electricity, for vehicle fuel, and as a bio-feedstock. According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, natural gas in the U.S. accounts for 29% of total electricity generation, 32% of industrial sector energy consumption, 24% of residential consumption, and 19% percent of commercial sector consumption. These numbers demonstrate that there is an undeniable opportunity to utilize gaseous waste streams to achieve deep decarbonization.

Over the past five years, RNG supply has increased by 291%. Despite that robust industry growth, much more can be done to increase consumer access to RNG. Programs that allow for utility procurement and distribution of RNG afford consumers the opportunity to decarbonize immediately, without the need to upgrade existing commercial or household appliances or industrial equipment. In Michigan, for example, DTE Energy offers its customers the option of paying $2.50 more on their monthly gas bill to participate in its BioGreenGas program and receive RNG from Michigan landfills and Wisconsin dairy farms. In Minnesota, Centerpoint Energy is working to provide a voluntary RNG program to 8,000 customers. Summit Utilities in Maine has partnered with the state’s dairy industry to provide locally produced RNG to its customers. Northwest Natural, Dominion, National Grid, SoCalGas and many other utilities throughout the country are offering or developing similar RNG options.

With increasing supply and awareness, interest in RNG is also growing for its potential contributions to organizational sustainability.

As demand for RNG grows, the RNG Coalition is working with the Midwest Renewable Energy Tracking System, or M-RETS, to expand the use of its renewable natural gas tracking system, and with Center for Resource Solutions on their Green-e® Renewable Fuels certification program.

RNG also provides significant opportunity to lower the carbon intensity of U.S. transportation fuel, because it is the lowest-carbon energy source available for use in both combustion- and electric-based transportation. When measured by “cradle-to-grave” life cycle analyses, which include the carbon impacts of atmospheric carbon avoidance, methane emissions processing and transport, deployment in a natural gas or electric vehicles, and displacement of gasoline or diesel, RNG can be carbon neutral or even carbon negative.

And despite what naysayers argue, supply isn’t a limiting factor. According to a study by QSS Group, funded by the U.S. DOE, RNG production potential from organic waste is nearly 10 billion diesel gallon equivalents, more than 25 percent of the 38 billion gallons of diesel consumed each year.

RNG is good for local economies, with more than 250,000 new jobs estimated from industry development. Every city and town, large and small, and every rural area in America produces waste that can be converted to RNG. READ MORE