Enbridge, Divert break ground on renewable fuel facility in Washington
Story by The Canadian Press •
CALGARY — Canadian pipeline giant Enbridge Inc. and U.S.-based food waste management company Divert Inc. have broken ground on their first joint project to be built under the terms of a US$1 billion infrastructure agreement announced earlier this year.
The two companies are investing approximately US$100 million in the first of what is expected to be several projects across the U.S. that will convert food waste into non-fossil fuel, renewable energy.
The first facility, for which a groundbreaking ceremony was held Thursday afternoon, will be built in Longview, Washington and will be the first of its kind in the state. It will accept wasted food from retail food customers, agricultural food producers, industrial food manufacturers, restaurants and others and convert it into renewable natural gas, or RNG.
"When we started looking at who we wanted to partner with in this space, Divert really stood out because they have kind of mastered ... diverting wasted food," said Caitlin Tessin, vice-president of strategy and market innovation for Enbridge.
"The fact that it doesn't just go into a landfill really attracted us to the Divert partnership because it's not just about decarbonized gas — there's a really strong social and community benefit to what they're doing," Tessin added.
Enbridge, which bought a 10 per cent stake in Divert earlier this year for US$80 million, is one of a number of traditional fossil fuel companies that have been investing in RNG as concerns about climate change intensify.
According to the World Biogas Association, organic waste from food production, food waste, farming, landfill and wastewater treatment are responsible for about 25 per cent of human-caused global emissions of methane, a harmful greenhouse gas.
But it's possible to harness the methane from organic waste to create an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional natural gas that can be used for home heating, cooking, and even fuelling vehicles.
Divert — which uses a patented "depackaging" process and anaerobic digestion technology in its facilities — already operates 10 sites across the U.S., working with nearly 5,400 retail stores to process more than 2.3 billion pounds of wasted food annually.
Enbridge will help to finance the Longview facility, and will transport the fuel produced there to customers in the Washington area via Enbridge's already existing natural gas pipeline network.
"RNG is a drop-in fuel replacement for traditional gas," Tessin said, adding replacing traditional gas with RNG helps to lower Enbridge's overall carbon footprint.
"It (allows us) to utilize the billions of dollars of infrastructure we already have."
The Longview facility is expected to be fully operational in 2024. Enbridge says it will be able to offset up to 23,000 metric tonnes of CO2 a year, the equivalent to removing 5,000 gas-powered cars from the road annually.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 7, 2023.
Companies in this story: (TSX:ENB)
Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press
Story by The Canadian Press •
CALGARY — Canadian pipeline giant Enbridge Inc. and U.S.-based food waste management company Divert Inc. have broken ground on their first joint project to be built under the terms of a US$1 billion infrastructure agreement announced earlier this year.
The two companies are investing approximately US$100 million in the first of what is expected to be several projects across the U.S. that will convert food waste into non-fossil fuel, renewable energy.
The first facility, for which a groundbreaking ceremony was held Thursday afternoon, will be built in Longview, Washington and will be the first of its kind in the state. It will accept wasted food from retail food customers, agricultural food producers, industrial food manufacturers, restaurants and others and convert it into renewable natural gas, or RNG.
"When we started looking at who we wanted to partner with in this space, Divert really stood out because they have kind of mastered ... diverting wasted food," said Caitlin Tessin, vice-president of strategy and market innovation for Enbridge.
"The fact that it doesn't just go into a landfill really attracted us to the Divert partnership because it's not just about decarbonized gas — there's a really strong social and community benefit to what they're doing," Tessin added.
Enbridge, which bought a 10 per cent stake in Divert earlier this year for US$80 million, is one of a number of traditional fossil fuel companies that have been investing in RNG as concerns about climate change intensify.
According to the World Biogas Association, organic waste from food production, food waste, farming, landfill and wastewater treatment are responsible for about 25 per cent of human-caused global emissions of methane, a harmful greenhouse gas.
But it's possible to harness the methane from organic waste to create an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional natural gas that can be used for home heating, cooking, and even fuelling vehicles.
Divert — which uses a patented "depackaging" process and anaerobic digestion technology in its facilities — already operates 10 sites across the U.S., working with nearly 5,400 retail stores to process more than 2.3 billion pounds of wasted food annually.
Enbridge will help to finance the Longview facility, and will transport the fuel produced there to customers in the Washington area via Enbridge's already existing natural gas pipeline network.
"RNG is a drop-in fuel replacement for traditional gas," Tessin said, adding replacing traditional gas with RNG helps to lower Enbridge's overall carbon footprint.
"It (allows us) to utilize the billions of dollars of infrastructure we already have."
The Longview facility is expected to be fully operational in 2024. Enbridge says it will be able to offset up to 23,000 metric tonnes of CO2 a year, the equivalent to removing 5,000 gas-powered cars from the road annually.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 7, 2023.
Companies in this story: (TSX:ENB)
Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press
BENGALURU, India (AP) — India, the current president of the Group of 20 industrialized and developing nations, has proposed a global biofuel alliance that seeks to accelerate the development of sustainable biofuels to support the global energy transition.
The alliance is likely to get an official announcement at the G-20 summit that opens this week in New Delhi, and it's expected that more than 15 countries will sign up to be part of the alliance.
The United States, Canada and Brazil are among a few of the countries expected to join India in such an alliance.
WHAT ARE BIOFUELS?
Any fuel produced from agricultural produce or organic waste is a biofuel.
Humans have used biofuels since time immemorial — for example, burning wood and manure for cooking, heating and light.
They've gained popularity in recent decades for their potential to deliver cleaner energy than some other sources.
Biofuels are categorized based on their source, with each category known as a “generation.” First-generation biofuels are derived from food crops like corn and sugar cane, second generation from inedible vegetation and agricultural waste and third-generation from algae.
Popular types of biofuels such as ethanol, biodiesel and biogas can be produced from any of these sources and are classified based on the source from which they are produced. For example, ethanol produced from farm-grown corn is classified as first-generation ethanol.
ARE BIOFUELS ALWAYS A SOURCE OF CLEAN ENERGY?
Not always. It depends on how it's produced. A biofuel made from waste or inedible vegetation, with renewable energy to power the production, would have little or no greenhouse gas emissions, making it a clean fuel. But when crops are grown explicitly to produce biofuels — such as making ethanol from corn, soybeans, sugar cane or palm — all the fertilizers and fossil fuels needed to grow, cultivate and process the fuel give it a much larger carbon footprint.
“If you look at the full life cycle of producing biofuels, it’s many times not clean,” said Lydia Powell, an energy policy analyst at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, who has followed developments related to biofuels for over two decades.
Biofuels can also mean land that could have produced food is instead being used for energy. And they can add to deforestation when land is cleared for their production.
Powell noted Europe's imports of palm oil from Indonesia and other East Asian countries to make biodiesel for cars and trucks. Those imports dropped sharply after European Union regulations banned the sale of palm oil and other commodities when they could be linked to deforestation.
"They were destroying natural forests to plant palm trees so you produce oil to export to Europe. When you destroy forests, you destroy large chunks of carbon sinks,” Powell said.
Those issues have clouded the picture of exactly how sustainable biofuels are, and led to skepticism of them as a clean energy option.
WHAT ARE BIOFUELS USED FOR?
Transportation, including passenger vehicles, but also transport — trucking, shipping and aviation.
Once they're made, experts say, biofuels have advantages over pure fossil fuels by contributing little to no emissions at the tailpipe. The same can't be said of the gasoline and diesel they are blended with.
But there's a hope that the biofuels might completely replace fossil fuels in the future in aviation and in certain kinds of ships. And if the biofuels were derived from organic waste and inedible crops grown on wasteland — not on land reserved for food production, or on deforested land — it would be cleaner.
“They are one option among a larger set of solutions,” said Jane O’Malley of International Council on Clean Transportation, a Washington-based independent nonprofit.
O’Malley, whose research includes fuel life cycles and exhaust emissions, said the key is to use the right kind of biofuel for the right purpose. O'Malley said it's essential for countries using biofuels for transportation to move as quickly as possible to producing them with little or no emissions.
Experts say biofuels can also contribute to employment and energy security, especially if the crops used to produce them are locally grown.
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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Sibi Arasu, The Associated Press
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