Brief of diving:
- The amount of capital invested in North -American projects through sectors that use biogas grew 40% year -on -year in 2024, according to an analysis published last week by the American Biogas Council industry group.
- The number of new facilities that occurred online also increased by 17%, revealed the group, including landfills, farms and wastewater treatment plants. There are now about 2,500 facilities that capture and use biogas in the United States.
- The report also reflects how renewable natural gas policies have dominated the industry, as 95% of the 125 projects that occurred online produced RNG last year.
Divide vision:
These trends reflect an increasing interest in using biogas for energy or to become renewable natural gas, a fuel that can be used instead of oil based on oil.
The use of energy biogas has a long history, especially for wastewater treatment facilities and dumps. The first modern anaerobic digestion plant was built in a wastewater treatment site in India in the 1800’s, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The capture and use of biogas has also been common for North -Americans over a certain size due to federal programs such as the EPA USA Dump Methane Dissemination Program, which began In the 1990’s.
Today, 47% of all biogas capture facilities in the country are in the wastewater facilities. An additional 25% are in agricultural facilities, 23% are in landfills and 5% are built to process the waste of food alone. CodigestationWhen multiple feed, such as food waste, agricultural waste or wastewater, they have also become more common.
An increasing number of public incentives have made biogas refining a more profitable company as a demand Increased fuel not derived from oil. Policies such as the federal renewable fuel standard and state net fuel initiatives have led to a significant growth in the biogas industry, specifically for RNG.
While 77% of biogas facilities produce energy today, 95% of new projects last year produced RNG instead of taking advantage of these incentives, according to ABC. Nrel has previously estimated that the RNG could displace about 5% of the natural gas consumption of the electricity sector and 56% of the consumption of natural gas related to transport.
“The biogas industry is changing very rapidly,” said Patrick Serfass, ABC’s executive director, in a recent webinar discussing the data.
The industry landfill sector experienced the smallest year -on -year growth, with 24 online facilities by 2024 compared to 26 of 2023. Large waste companies have complained about construction and allow delays. they start, even though they are still committed to building dozens of dump-gas to rng Facilities across the country. However, landfills represent 72% of the total of the US biogas production capacity due to the high volume of gas they produce.
Agriculture -based digestors grew 24% year -on -year by 2024, most in any industry. There are currently 615 digestors across the country, with more information thanks to the continuous investment in the space.
Autonomous facilities that manage food waste are still the smallest sector in the biogas industry, with 114 operations representing 5% of all biogas facilities. Of these, 52 handled postconsuming food waste, while the rest handled the waste of pre-consumption industrial foods. However, the sector has a lot of space for growth.
“Many people in our industry are quite upward that food waste systems will have much more significant growth in the coming years,” said Serfass.
ABC projects more than 15,000 new places It could be developed for the use of biogas in the United States, based on the generation of captive gas through the sectors of the industry. He states that Germany has about 10,000 digestors across the country, allowing some communities to stop almost completely the use of oil -based fuels.
The ABC defends policies that promote the additional growth of industry, including “Tailpipe rules” for large and resistant fleets that do not favor electric vehicles on natural vehicles powered by natural gas. The group is also pressing to preserve and expand the tax credits that support the production of fuel and electricity, which may be threatened by President Trump’s orientation of the measures of the Inflation Reduction Act.
“Organic waste is everywhere; this is not an urban/rural or red/blue problem,” said Heather Dziedzic, ABC’s vice -president of Policy last week. “This is nationally.”
