[Graeme]

Largest “Stomach” In The U.S.A. Digests Food Waste, Spits Out Biogas Fuel For Trucks

The company CleanWorld has just started up what could be described as a gigantic man-made digestive system at a garbage transfer station in Sacramento, California. When it’s fully expanded, the Sacramento Biodigester will be the largest facility of its kind in the U.S., capable of gobbling up about 100 tons of food waste per day and converting it into enough natural gas fuel to replace 1 million gallons of conventional diesel fuel per year — and that’s just for starters.


The new digester basically employs the natural process of anaerobic digestion to break down organic material, only it’s revved up and precisely balanced to achieve a high level of efficiency on a truly massive scale (anaerobic digestion refers to bacteria that thrive without oxygen). The process yields both renewable biogas and inert solids that can be safely used as a fertilizer or soil enhancer.

cleantechnica

[Graeme]

Will biogas combined with natural gas make a difference then?

All Roads Lead to Natural Gas-Fueled Cars and Trucks

The tea leaves would tend to indicate that the transportation sector will increasingly fill up using natural gas: LNG is best with heavy duty trucks while compressed natural gas, or CNG, is used to power passenger vehicles and corporate fleets. The momentum, however, will be slow mainly because of a nascent infrastructure that would support such changes. But some high profile public and private players are working on that, and are expecting success.

“As global demand for transportation fuel increases, including LNG, Shell is well positioned to meet this demand,” says Marvin Odum, president of Shell Oil Company. “LNG will be a welcome addition to Shell’s portfolio of quality transportation fuels.”

What’s Shell up to? It is working with Wartsila North America to develop larger engines that could run on the fuel. It is also joining with Westport Innovations to co-market the need for new LNG-fueled trucks as well as partnering with GE’s transportation division to assist the rail industry in building locomotive engines that can function on both diesel and LNG.

As for Shell, this years marks the first time that its natural gas production exceeded that of its oil development. Shell says that it expects the global demand for LNG to double to 400 million tons by 2020 and to potentially as much as 500 million tons by 2025.

forbes

[ralfy]

Ultimately, the country will have to decrease waste.

[evilgenius]

Yeah, this story is more about American excess than the potential fuel supply from waste. It doesn't hurt to show, however, how we can always strive for more efficiency. Maybe when the amount of waste decreases as America loses its grip on Imperial power this project will have to import waste from towns and cities in order to stay in operation? I wonder if they can do that and still produce power at a profit? I'm not betting against them, just curious.