During its annual awards reception in Manhattan, N.Y., Energy Vision, a national nonprofit that researches and promotes sustainable low-carbon energy and transportation strategies, honored business and government leaders and health and alternative energy advocates whose work is helping ramp up adoption of renewable natural gas (RNG) made from organic waste. The 2018 Energy Vision awardees include:
- The city of Toronto, Canada, which collects residential food waste and will soon process it into RNG to power its refuse trucks.
- The Kroger Co., which processes its organic waste at its anaerobic digesters at locations in California and Indiana and uses the fuel to heat its warehouses and power trucks in Oregon.
- Philip J. Landrigan, director of the Global Public Health Program at the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society at Boston College, noted child health expert and author of “Children and Environmental Toxins: What Everyone Should Know.” Landrigan advocates ending reliance on diesel trucks and buses and adopting clean alternatives to improve public health.
- James S. Cannon, president of Energy Futures, Inc., who received Energy Vision’s Lifetime Achievement Award for his work conducting seminal research in alternative energy and alternative transportation fuels over four decades.
RNG is made by capturing and refining methane biogases emitted as organic wastes (from communities, food processing and agricultural operations) decompose. Argonne National Labs and the California Air Resources Board have independently verified that over its lifecycle, RNG made from manure or food scraps processed in an anaerobic digester is a “net carbon-negative” transportation fuel. That’s because the greenhouse gases (GHGs) captured in producing RNG are greater than the GHGs emitted by the vehicles burning it.
At the same time, using RNG instead of diesel eliminates carbon-intensive emissions from heavy-duty vehicles. The bio-solids left in digester tanks after the gases are extracted can be used as high-quality compost and soil amendments, eliminating the need for chemical fertilizers.
A new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report emphasizes the need for carbon-negative strategies that can remove carbon dioxide from the air to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“The new IPCC report finds we may have dire consequences by 2040 unless we make drastic changes quickly,” said Energy Vision Founder and Board Member Joanna Underwood as she introduced the awardees. “But the good news is, RNG is a carbon negative strategy ready to go now, and we are working to grow the waste-to-fuel industry. Over 30,000 U.S. buses and trucks are already running on RNG. Unfortunately, none of them are in New York City. One of our top priorities is our campaign to get New York City to stop running all its thousands of trucks and buses on diesel or biodiesel and adopt RNG.”
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