I recently participated in an interview with Jeff St. John, Director of News and Special Projects at Canary Media. It was for a story he was writing related to the climate impact of making renewable hydrogen from biogas, the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) and the clean hydrogen tax credit in the Inflation Reduction Act. Unfortunately, the resulting piece blindly repeats the non-science-based rhetoric and bias of anti-agriculture groups, and, in the process, Mr. St. John lacks a substantive counterpart and gets several concepts wrong.
As someone who has built my career in the renewable energy industry, currently serving as executive director of the American Biogas Council and the former Vice President of the National Hydrogen Association, I am a strong proponent of using renewable resources to meet our energy and environmental needs wherever we can. There is so much work for us to do. Biogas systems, for one, are necessary for our society to recycle the millions of tons of organic waste we produce in the U.S. each year, and therefore it’s important to understand how they integrate into our renewable energy markets.
Below are seven points—some basic data and market concepts, as well as simple climate science—to set the record straight, so we can make better and more informed policy choices for all of us.
- The average carbon intensity of all biogas projects selling their gas into the California transportation market is net negative, -52 grams of CO2 equivalent per megajoule of energy produced (gCO2e/MJ). This average was determined by looking at all individual projects registered under California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), administered by the California Air Resources Board (CARB). CARB scores every project on its carbon intensity using the GREET model, developed by Argonne National Laboratory. Gasoline and diesel have a carbon intensity of about 100. (CARB’s current fuel pathway data was downloaded from this page on September 19, 2023)
- The average carbon intensity of all hydrogen made from biogas in California is -119, compared to all hydrogen from solar, which is net zero. According to CARB, using actual project data, below is how different hydrogen projects compare, scored on their carbon intensity (grams of CO2 equivalent per megajoule of energy produced, gCO2e/MJ), in descending order:
- Hydrogen from grid electrolysis: 164
- Hydrogen from fossil natural gas: 125
- Hydrogen from landfill gas: 82
- Hydrogen from solar electrolysis: 0
- Hydrogen from dairy manure biogas: -212
- Hydrogen from swine manure biogas: -357
The average carbon intensity for all hydrogen-producing projects is -42 gCO2e/MJ.
(CARB’s current fuel pathway data was downloaded from this page on September 19, 2023)
- “Book and claim” is the mechanism where emissions are reduced in one place, and those emission reductions are applied to another place. It is science-based, and today it is the most widely used method for trading renewable energy and making green hydrogen. The renewable electricity industry has used book and claim for decades, and it’s what everyone uses who buys renewable electricity for their home or business—or sells the solar on their roof.
For example, if you have solar on your roof, you produce electrons and renewable energy certificates (RECs). The electrons go to your appliances or the grid, depending on what you need. It’s owning RECs which allows you to claim you are using renewable energy, whether as a homeowner or a business. If you don’t feel the need to brag to your friends that you’re using renewable energy, then you can sell your RECs, and with them, sell the right to claim the use of renewable energy, to someone else. (We use 100% renewable electricity in our home. I bought the RECs from our utility and therefore get to write that statement as long as I continue to purchase them.)
- A robust system tracks the production and sale of RECs to protect against dishonest actors. This certificate-based tracking system ensures RECs are only held by one organization, as well as third-party agencies. One American Biogas Council member, M-RETS, verifies and assists with this process by using a transparent, web-based platform to track the production and use (retiring) of RECs and Renewable Thermal Certificates (RTCs). This system ensures single-use transactions by issuing a unique, traceable, digital certificate for every megawatt-hour (MWh) of renewable energy generated by registered units or imported into its system. This creates an honorable system complying with state policy and ensuring credits are not double-counted. (At our home, our utility tracks our electric use and retires the appropriate number of RECs we purchase within the tracking system that covers our region of the US.)
- Just as RECs can be booked (produced) in one place and claimed (used) in another, so too can carbon reductions and emissions. Most hydrogen projects making green hydrogen from the electrolysis of water actually get their electricity from the grid. However, if these projects bought the renewable certificates and related emissions reductions from a solar array or wind farm, then, when one evaluates the entire lifecycle emissions of the hydrogen production, the project can use the booked emission reductions from solar/wind (usually net zero) and claim it is producing green hydrogen—even though the electrons may have come from the grid. This is the green hydrogen for which Mr. St. John is advocating: where you book the emissions reductions in one place, and claim them in another.
When a hydrogen producer books the carbon reductions from a biogas system, which reduces methane emissions on a farm, and claims those reductions in the overall production of the hydrogen from the resulting biogas, this is the widely accepted same book and claim process that green hydrogen producers use. It’s quite hypocritical to see Mr. St. John criticizing it for hydrogen production from biogas and lauding it for solar electrolysis. - Counting carbon reduction from fuel production and fuel use is not double-counting; it’s called a lifecycle or well-to-wheels assessment. Lifecycle assessments (LCAs) are the most scientific and complete way to evaluate the carbon intensity of a system. A battery-electric vehicle (BEV) has no tailpipe emissions—so, is it beneficial to run all our BEVs on coal-fired electricity? No, because when you consider the lifecycle emissions, the coal-fired power plant and extraction of the coal has huge environmental consequences which must be counted. Similarly, if tons of methane emissions are eliminated while making the biogas to produce electricity for BEVs— then is it fair to add those negative carbon emissions with the positive carbon emissions from turning the biogas into electricity for the BEVs? Absolutely. An LCA is the only way to know whether the project is making an overall improvement on climate emissions or not—add everything up. Also, using LCAs are how technology-neutral, market-based policies, like the California LCFS incentivize investment in reducing carbon emissions fairly across an entire industry.
- Anaerobic digesters are the most effective way to reduce methane emissions on farms today—Millions of tons of it in California alone. And biogas systems offer many other benefits as well.
Add this all up and you can see why it makes so much sense for the federal Inflation Reduction Act to have a clean hydrogen tax credit and for the US Treasury to include biogas. It’s the best way to get meaningful, comprehensive emission reductions because producing biogas provides more benefits than just renewable energy.
The American Biogas Council is agnostic to how U.S. biogas is used—whether it is producing 24/7 electricity, renewable heat, vehicle fuels, shipping, bioplastics, etc. These are all good options to serve diverse needs.
Instead of focusing on the different uses of biogas, we should be more focused on this: In our country annually, we produce 66.5 million tons of food waste, 11 trillion gallons of wastewater and manure and agriculture waste from 8 billion cows, chickens, turkeys and pigs. Only two ways exist to recycle that material: biogas and compost systems. If we don’t build as many biogas systems as we can, what will be done with those resources and their resulting climate impact?
Those genuinely interested and passionate about climate change and protecting the environment will consider the whole picture and spend time evaluating science-based facts before drawing conclusions and forming opinions.
I expected better from Canary Media, which describes itself as an independent newsroom, with a team dedicated to uncompromising reporting. While we are all entitled to our opinion, the news should remain unbiased. Mr. St. John’s article should have been shared as an opinion piece, not a news story. And, if you’ve gotten this far, hopefully you’ve learned something new.
Cross-posted from LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/clearing-air-biogas-hydrogen-patrick-serfass