In the United States (US), renewable natural gas (RNG) and renewable fuels company Aemetis Inc has announced that it has been issued building permits by Stanislaus County in California (CA) to construct the next phase of dairy biogas digesters in the Aemetis Biogas Central Dairy Digester Project which will be connected via private pipeline to the Aemetis ethanol plant near Modesto.
The next phase of five dairy biogas digesters is part of a network of lagoon digesters being built by Aemetis Biogas to produce renewable natural gas (RNG) for use as a transportation fuel.
The RNG produced by the first two dairy digesters has been approved by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) utilizing negative 426 (-426) carbon intensity biogas to displace petroleum-based natural gas used at the Keyes ethanol production facility.
The next phase of five dairy digesters is planned for completion in Q1 2022, with an additional ten dairy digesters planned for completion by Q4 2022. When completed, the seventeen dairy digesters built and operated by Aemetis are expected to produce approximately 440 000 MMBtu per year of RNG for use in trucks and buses to displace carbon-based diesel fuel.
In addition to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) IS/MND permit for the 32-mile extension of the Aemetis Biogas pipeline, the project has received building permits to begin construction of the next phase of dairy biogas digesters. We have already built and currently operate two dairy biogas digesters, on-dairy gas upgrading and pressurization facilities, and a four-mile biogas pipeline connecting to our Keyes ethanol plant. The centralized biogas cleanup and utility pipeline interconnection facilities at the Keyes plant are currently under construction for completion in Q4 2021, and we plan to complete the construction of 15 additional dairy biogas digesters during 2022, said Andy Foster, President of Aemetis Biogas, a subsidiary of Aemetis, Inc.
Combined, the planned 52 dairies in the Aemetis biogas project are expected to capture more than 1.4 million MMBtu of dairy methane and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions equivalent to an estimated 5.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year.
The Aemetis Biogas dairy RNG project, energy efficiency upgrades to the Aemetis Keyes biofuels plant, and the Aemetis Renewable Jet/Diesel project include US$57 million of grant funding and other support from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the US Forest Service, the California Energy Commission (CEC), the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), the California State Treasurer’s Office, and Pacific Gas and Electric’s (PG&E) energy efficiency program.
