Clean Energy Fuels Corp. has broken ground on a renewable natural gas (RNG) production facility at South Fork Dairy in Dimmitt, Texas. Home to a 16,000-cow herd, the facility will produce RNG, an ultra-clean transportation fuel that is made from organic waste and receives a negative carbon-intensity score.
Construction of the digesters and processing plant is forecasted to cost approximately $85 million and is expected to be completed in 2025. The South Fork Dairy facility is set to be one of the biggest RNG production developments in the U.S. with an anticipated 2.6 million gallons of RNG to be produced annually once completed. All the RNG fuel produced at the site will make its way into Clean Energy’s nationwide network of stations.
“We are excited to begin construction on the South Fork Texas project,” says Clay Corbus senior vice president of renewables at Clean Energy. “Building anaerobic digesters at a large dairy like South Fork will help the dairy owner, Frank Brand, and his team collect and monetize sizeable amounts of manure waste while also benefiting from the environmental credits an RNG facility brings. We are proud to call Frank, who is one of the most well-respected people in the dairy industry, our partner.”
“The project not only helps us convert our waste into a clean, useable sustainable fuel, but it also helps us with managing manure, which for a dairy of our size is quite a feat,” adds Brand. “We do this while simultaneously reducing our environmental footprint — it’s a direction I hope many other dairies will look to pursuing.”
Agriculture accounts for nearly 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Capturing methane from farm waste can lower these emissions. RNG drastically reduces GHG emissions by an average of 300% versus diesel. It is so clean that the California Air Resources Board gives RNG from dairy farms an average carbon-intensity score of -330, which is substantially lower than electric vehicles charging with electricity on the grid.
