Understanding Renewable Natural Gas

You can use RNG to power equipment or vehicles that use natural gas, or to generate your own electricity on site. This can be a great way to save money and energy. Other benefits include:

• Capture emissions of unused "waste" methane
• Reduce the need for conventional fuel
• Cut production and waste disposal costs

RNG can be an important renewable energy tool because it is available anytime consumers need it. Wind and solar are intermittent energy sources – meaning the energy isn’t available when the sun isn’t shining, and the wind isn’t blowing.  Waste material can be converted into deliverable, renewable energy 24 hours per day, seven days a week and can be deployed when and where it is needed through the pipeline network

Biogas is the raw gas produced from decomposing organic waste. It typically consists of mainly methane and carbon dioxide, along with traces of other elements. In order to become RNG, biogas needs to be cleaned and conditioned, which means removing or reducing non-methane elements such as carbon dioxide. This process generates a Renewable Natural Gas that’s completely interchangeable with traditional pipeline-quality natural gas and ensures safe and reliable operation of the pipeline network and customer equipment. RNG is extremely versatile and can be delivered anywhere along the nation’s extensive pipeline infrastructure.

Courtesy of the American Gas Association

The abundance of these materials allows for production of substantial quantities of biogas.  Recent analysis for the California Energy Commission and Energy Vision indicate that RNG produced from California’s existing organic waste streams has the potential to supply on the order of 25–30% of the state’s total non-power-plant gas demand—enough to cover at least half, and potentially more than all, of current residential natural gas use, depending on how that supply is allocated.¹

The 2024 California Gas Report, summarizing multiple studies, finds that in-state RNG from anaerobic digestion and non-combustion gasification of organic feedstocks could supply about 75% of California’s 2020 residential natural gas demand.²

The residential sector is the largest end user, making up about 38 percent of the natural gas usage in California.³

According the 2023 Billion-Ton Report (BT23), that has assessed renewable carbon resources, it has found that the nation can sustainably produce from 1.1 - 1.5 billion tons per year of biomass, tripling current U.S. bioenergy production while still meeting projected demand for food, feed, fiber, conventional forest products, and exports.  The BT23 Report quantifies national biomass production capacity from 60 resources, including wastes, forestry, agriculture, and algae.⁴

Reducing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas levels is important to help reduce global warming. RNG is considered a carbon-neutral fuel because it comes from organic sources that once absorbed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. RNG has even greater benefits when it’s produced from organic waste that would otherwise decay and emit methane emissions into the atmosphere. By capturing more greenhouses gases than it emits, this RNG can be considered carbon-negative!