Asbury Park Press OpEd
by Matt Tomich, Energy Vision President
Gov. Phil Murphy pledged to restore New Jersey to national leadership in fighting climate change, building a green economy and transitioning to 100 percent clean energy by 2050.
He has already taken some laudable steps. He brought New Jersey back into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) to lower greenhouse emissions from electric power generation, and the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) to lower emissions from the transport sector, which is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for 40 percent of New Jersey’s emissions.
So far, so good. But there’s a big step yet to be taken to vault New Jersey ahead on climate change, clean transportation and clean energy: harnessing its massive organic waste stream as a renewable, ultra-low carbon energy resource.
New Jersey generates millions of tons of organic waste annually, including some 1.4 million tons of food scraps from residents and businesses, plus agricultural waste and municipal wastewater.
If these wastes decompose in oxygen-free environments they produce methane-rich biogas. Left to escape into the atmosphere, methane is a greenhouse gas 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over 20 years. But when captured and used to generate renewable heat/electricity, it fights climate change.
Gases from organic waste rotting in landfills can be processed and refined to remove moisture, contaminants and impurities, becoming “renewable natural gas” (RNG) or “biomethane” fuel. Beyond landfills, organic wastes and municipal wastewater can also be processed in oxygen-deprived tanks called “anaerobic digesters” to produce RNG.
RNG is chemically indistinguishable from natural gas extracted from the ground, but it’s not a fossil fuel. It entails no drilling or fracking, and has a much lower carbon footprint than fossil natural gas. In fact, it’s the lowest-carbon fuel available, and is often net-carbon-negative. That means making and using RNG can actually result in less greenhouse gas in the atmosphere than if the biogases were never captured and used as fuel in the first place.
Continue reading or download the full OpEd HERE.
The post Murphy ignoring organic waste as clean energy source: Tomich appeared first on Energy Vision.