Clean Cities Success Story: City of Columbus

January 12, 2010 by Dan Gibson· Comments Off
Filed under: Natural Gas

Clean Cities is a government-industry partnership sponsored by the Department of Energy (DOE)’s Vehicle Technologies Program. With almost 90 local coalitions and more than 5,700 stakeholders, Clean Cities’ mission is to reduce petroleum consumption in the transportation sector. We’ve written about Clean Cities a few times in the past.

Their latest success story comes from the City of Columbus. The city has integrated CNG/gasoline light-duty trucks and a new CNG refuse truck into its daily operations. They’ve been so impressed with the vehicles that they plan to add 21 more CNG trucks by 2011. They’re also building a new CNG fueling station to go along with the vehicles.

You can view the video above or hop on over to the Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center Web site for more. Be sure to visit the AGA YouTube channel if you’re looking for more great natural gas videos. Before you go though, you can visit our “vehicles” category on the right for more great natural gas vehicles stories.

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Tags: vehicles

Welcome John Norris to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

January 7, 2010 by Andrew Soto· Comments Off
Filed under: energy

Before it adjourned on December 24, 2009, the U.S. Senate confirmed John Norris to serve on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Norris, a former chairman of the Iowa Utilities Board, has recently been serving as chief of staff to Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack. Norris fills the seat vacated by former FERC Chairman Joseph Kelliher.

The commission comprises five members who serve staggered, five-year terms. No more than three commissioners may be of the same political party. With Norris’ confirmation, FERC now has four commissioners: Phil Moeller, a Republican, has been on the commission since 2006, and his term expires this year (June 30, 2010); Marc Spitzer, also a Republican, joined the commission shortly after Phil Moeller, and his term expires next year (June 30, 2011); John Norris, a Democrat who was recently confirmed, will serve a term ending June 30, 2012; and Jon Wellinghoff, also a Democrat, serves as chairman of the commission, and his term will end June 30, 2013. There is an open seat with a term expiring June 30, 2014. This seat was recently vacated by Suedeen Kelly, who had been on the commission since 2003 but declined President Obama’s invitation to serve for another five years.

Serving as a FERC commissioner is a demanding job – the workload is heavy, the policy calls are significant and the demands on one’s time from interested parties wanting to hear and express views are never ending. There should be five commissioners to spread the work around. While the commission can function with four and even three commissioners, the decision-making process is improved when different perspectives and opinions are brought to bear on the myriad policy calls that arise on a daily basis. Having only four commissioners means that every decision must command a three-fourths majority, and although the issues with which FERC deals do not usually break along partisan lines, having two Republican commissioners and two Democratic commissioners only invites partisan considerations.

I look forward to John Norris’ term on the commission and wish him the best. I hope that President Obama soon nominates someone of high quality to fill the open seat and that the Senate confirms him or her shortly thereafter. To be truly effective the Commission should have a full complement of five commissioners.

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Altamont landfill takes trash to gas

January 6, 2010 by Dan Gibson· Comments Off
Filed under: Natural Gas

Great article on NPR about the Altamont Landfill in California. The Altamont landfill has been used by San Francisco and Oakland residents and businesses since 1980. Since November, a facility constructed on the 240-acre landfill has been turning the methane gas produced by the landfill into liquefied natural gas (LNG) used to fuel almost 500 Waste Management Inc. garbage and recycling trucks

“We’ve built the largest landfill-to-LNG plant in the world; this plant produces 13,000 gallons a day of LNG,” said Jessica Jones, a landfill manager for Houston-based Waste Management. “It will take 30,000 tons a year of CO2 from the environment.”

The Altamont landfill has more than 100 wells with black tubes throughout the facility that vacuum up methane from the heap and that is then turned into LNG. The LNG is pumped into the garbage and recycling trucks at a company fueling station in Oakland.

The Altamont Landfill has been doing their best to make use of the landfill as a resource for some time. Since 1989 they’ve had a methane-fueled electric power plant that can power 8,000 homes a day.

I’ve noticed quite a few stories about landfill energy plants during my time at AGA. According to the article, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency counted 517 active landfill energy projects in the nation’s approximately 1,800 operational municipal landfills in 2009. That was up almost 50 percent from 2000, and 28 percent from 2004.

One of the challenges with these types of projects is the initial expense but there’s some good news here. Four state environmental agencies contributed grants to help build the $15.5 million Altamont plant. Mike Beckman of Linde Group North America, the company that built and runs the natural gas plant, said the Altamont plant should continue producing fuel for 20 years or more meaning the plant should be profitable since the gas is sold to Waste Management and other customers.

The article has a lot more great information and pictures so I’d encourage a read. If you know of any similar projects in your area, let us know in the comments.

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