Aemetis, Inc. the renewable natural gas (RNG) and renewable fuels company, announced it received building permits to build the next stage of dairy biogas digesters. The Aemetis Biogas Central Dairy Digester Project will be connected via private pipeline to the Aemetis ethanol plant near Modesto.
“In addition to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) IS/MND permit for the 32-mile extension of the Aemetis Biogas pipeline, the project has received building permits to begin construction of the next phase of dairy biogas digesters,” said Andy Foster, President of the Aemetis Biogas subsidiary of Aemetis, Inc. “We have already built and currently operate two dairy biogas digesters, on-dairy gas upgrading and pressurization facilities, and a four-mile biogas pipeline connecting to our Keyes ethanol plant. The centralized biogas cleanup and utility pipeline interconnection facilities at the Keyes plant are currently under construction for completion in Q4 2021, and we plan to complete the construction of 15 additional dairy biogas digesters during 2022.”
The next phase of five dairy biogas digesters, which are expected to be ready at the beginning of next year, are part of a network of lagoon digesters being built by Aemetis Biogas to produce RNG for use as a transportation fuel. The RNG produced by the first two dairy digesters has been approved by the California Air Resources Board utilizing -426 carbon intensity biogas to substitute petroleum based natural gas used at the Keyes ethanol production facility.
An additional ten dairy digesters are planned to be completed by the end of 2022. The total seventeen dairy digesters are expected to produce approximately 440,000 MMBtu per year of RNG for use in trucks and buses to displace carbon based diesel fuel.
It is estimated that the planned 52 dairies in the Aemetis biogas project will capture more than 1.4 million MMBtu of dairy methane and reduce GHG emissions to about 5.2 million metric tonnes of CO2 annually, which equals to removing the emissions from approximately 1.1 million cars.
“The Aemetis Biogas dairy RNG project, energy efficiency upgrades to the Aemetis Keyes biofuels plant, and the Aemetis Renewable Jet/Diesel project include $57 million of grant funding and other support from the US Department of Agriculture, the US Forest Service, the California Energy Commission, the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the California State Treasurer’s Office, and Pacific Gas and Electric’s energy efficiency program.”
