Renewable Natural Gas Production with Value-Added Fertilizer Co-Product
Anaerobic digestion method to economically produce renewable natural gas as a transportation fuel.
Clean World Partners, LLC
Recipient
Gold River, CA
Recipient Location
1st
Senate District
7th
Assembly District
$817,115
Amount Spent
Completed
Project Status
Project Result
The work performed under this grant resulted in the development of new technologies that will help advance anaerobic digestion for producing renewable natural gas as a transportation fuel. It will also help improve the profitability of anaerobic digestion as a beneficial technology, which will ultimately help expand the use and usefulness of an anaerobic digester and reduce dependence on non-renewable energy.
The Issue
Conventional natural gas recovered from underground reservoirs and recovery represents a wholesale de-sequestering of carbon and contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) formation and global climate change. Renewable natural gas (RNG) recycles carbon already found in the environment, rather than releasing new carbon. RNG technology is still relatively underdeveloped. Research is needed to explore renewable natural gas production that yields co-products and co-benefits to make it more cost competitive with conventional natural gas.
Project Innovation
The purpose of this project was to design, construct, and operate a novel fertilizer production system that will produce value added fertilizer products from digester effluent, improving the economics of biomethane production as a transportation fuel. The fertilizer production system was designed to create multiple pre-designed fertilizer products or custom products, depending on the local market demand, as a method of enhancing the economic feasibility of the anaerobic digester system.
Project Benefits
This project demonstrated the feasibility of a novel anaerobic digester effluent processor that produced fertilizers serving as an additional revenue stream to improve the economics of the biomethane production. The fertilizer products reduce greenhouse gas emissions by offsetting nitrogen-based fertilizers with organic fertilizers.
Environmental Sustainability
Food waste is the most prevalent type of material in California’s waste stream, totaling 6,158,120 tons per year. With 10% market penetration, 613,200 tons per year of waste can be diverted from landfills, 69,300 MT CO2e GHG emissions per year can be reduced, and 11,827 tons per year of fertilizer can be produced as a renewable co-product.
