California's Green-Energy Subsidies Spur a Gold Rush in Cow Manure

[dalton99a]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/californias-green-energy-subsidies-spur-a-gold-rush-in-cow-manure-11645279200

California’s Green-Energy Subsidies Spur a Gold Rush in Cow Manure
A lucrative state incentive to make natural gas from dairy waste is attracting companies from Amazon to Chevron
By Phred Dvorak
Feb. 19, 2022 9:00 am ET

Clean Energy Fuels Corp., a major distributor of natural gas made from waste, found a way to boost its earnings by millions of dollars, virtually overnight.

All it had to do was switch the main biofuel it supplies to power cars and trucks in California — currently a type of natural gas produced with methane emissions from garbage — to a chemically identical gas produced from the manure of cows.

California’s clean-fuels grading system gives cow-poop gas a much better score — and much higher subsidies — than landfill gas. So that simple substitution could net Clean Energy an additional $70 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization by 2026, the company estimates.

Together with European energy giants BP PLC and TotalEnergies SE, Clean Energy is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into gas production on dairy farms to milk that advantage. A host of developers, financiers and carbon-conscious corporations, from Chevron Corp. to Amazon.com Inc., are looking to buy or produce the fuel as well.

[Bayard]

1. Who knew?

Wonder if that would work with horse manure......

[mopinko]

2. there's a town in iowa totally powered by cow poop.

iirc, amana, ia. a big dairy farm installed an anaerobic digester which then turn the methane into electricity. dont see any reason not to require EVERY cafo to have one.