Renewable natural gas is just a fraction of the U.S. natural gas market, but it received a boost earlier in 2019 when United Parcel Service Inc. signed a deal to obtain the gas to use as a vehicle fuel.
According to a report by Natural Gas Vehicles for America, or NGVAmerica, and the Coalition for Renewable Natural Gas, which also goes by RNG Coalition, 32% of all fuel for on-road natural gas vehicles in 2018 was renewable natural gas, or RNG. The groups said the natural gas equivalent of 645 million gasoline gallons was used as a motor fuel in that year, and of that total, the equivalent of more than 204 million gasoline gallons was renewable gas. The groups said the use of renewable gas as a transportation fuel has increased 577% in the last five years.
"Proven and affordable natural gas vehicle technology is over 90% cleaner than federal [Environmental Protection Agency] nitrogen oxide emission standards," NGVAmerica President Dan Gage said in a statement. "And when those American-made, heavy-duty trucks and buses are fueled with renewable natural gas, they are up to 125% cleaner than the cleanest diesel technology in terms of carbon emissions. RNG-fueled vehicles are the most immediate and cost-effective heavy-duty option when seeking to combat climate change."
Ben Chu, director of equities, liquefied natural gas and proprietary systems at energy market research and news company Genscape Inc., described RNG as a "feel-good fuel." He observed that it is produced in tiny amounts compared to fossil natural gas, but it is betterfor the environment.
"At the end of 2018, RNG production stood just shy of 90 MMcf/d, which is the equivalent to the startup volumes on one good-sized Marcellus or Utica pad, each pad being approximately six wells," Chu said in a July interview. "In comparison, U.S. production is approximately 90 Bcf/d, which is 1,000 times the RNG market. So RNG would be a very small — but of course very positive — contribution to our natural gas supply."
In May, UPS and Clean Energy Fuels Corp. closed a deal in which UPS would purchase 170 million gasoline gallon equivalents of renewable natural gas through 2026. UPS said the company is working toward a set of "environmental goals that address the greenhouse gas emissions" of its facilities and its ground fleet.
"It's all about branding," Chu said. "Since any gas requires a pipeline infrastructure to match supply and demand, it makes sense for companies like UPS [that are] using larger volumes to match up with facilities that produce it."
"We are measuring the progress of our global ground operations in absolute terms, seeking a 12% reduction in [greenhouse gas] emissions by 2025," Kristen Petrella, UPS sustainability public relations manager, said in an interview. "In our industry, the use of renewable energy is critical to reducing absolute emissions. RNG will be one of the main strategies used to achieve our goal."
UPS said it hoped that this large commitment for RNG will foster more interest and action among other fleets to invest in alternative fuels. Clean Energy Fuels declined to comment on the partnership.
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Under the agreement, UPS fueling stations across the country will use RNG from Clean Energy as a transportation fuel for delivery vehicles. The stations are located in places such as Atlanta; Salt Lake City; New Orleans; El Paso, Texas; and Trinidad, Colo.
RNG producers install equipment to capture and process methane from agricultural processes, landfills or other sources that would otherwise be released to the atmosphere. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, but when it is burned, it releases carbon dioxide, which has significantly less global warming potential.
"The world has a trash problem. And the world has an emissions problem," UPS official Mike Casteel said at the time the deal closed. "Renewable natural gas, produced naturally from biosources such as landfills and dairy farms, not only turns trash to gas, but it turns it into clean gas." Casteel was the company's director of fleet procurement until he retired in June.
In recent years, gas utilities have been trying to find their place in an increasingly climate-conscious world, where state regulators and consumers look to non-fossil-fuel sources of energy, which include RNG and wind and solar power.
DTE Energy has expanded its renewable energy profile with the help of Wisconsin dairy farms, generating RNG from cow waste to fuel vehicles in the upper Midwest. A project with partner Pagel's Ponderosa Dairy, one of several farm RNG facilities that DTE Biomass Energy plans to develop, began construction in August 2018 and began producing gas in May.

