by Nathalie Hoffman (LCFS Consulting Services, Inc./BioCycle Magazine) Before January 2021, no food scraps-to-renewable natural gas (RNG) pathways had been certified by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) under CA-GREET 3.0 the version of the life cycle analysis model used by the agency since 2019 to certify Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) pathways. Then in January, CARB used the rare Design-based pathway process to certify a pathway in the City of Napa, California for Zero Waste Energy (ZWE), as described in a recent BioCycle article.
That certification was noteworthy not only because of the process used, but also because of the ultra-low carbon intensity (CI) of the pathway at -165 gCO
by Nathalie Hoffman (BioCycle Magazine) The California Air Resources Board sends signal to the marketplace about importance of RNG produced from food waste in its Low Carbon Fuel Standard program. While renewable natural gas (RNG) produced from dairy and swine manure has received a lot of attention due to the ultra-negative carbon intensities (CIs) possible, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) recently sent a strong signal to the marketplace that RNG produced from food scraps is also very important. The signal came a couple of months ago when CARB certified the first, and to date, only food scraps-to-RNG pathway under the current version (CA-GREET 3.0) of CA-GREET, the California-centric version of Argonne National Laboratories’ GREET model. CA-GREET 3.0 is used to calculate CIs for the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS).