Minnesota dairy turns cow manure into renewable gas for vehicle fuel

In rural Minnesota, a 55-acre dairy farm is pioneering a new approach to renewable energy by transforming cow manure into ultra-low-carbon vehicle fuel. The Ash Grove Dairy near Lake Benton now houses a facility that processes up to 60,000 gallons of manure daily, converting it into biomethane that is injected directly into interstate natural gas pipelines.

This innovative project, a $22 million joint venture led by Clean Energy Fuels Corp, addresses the significant environmental challenge posed by methane emissions from large dairy farms. Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is naturally released as manure decomposes in storage ponds. The new facility captures this methane before it escapes into the atmosphere by pumping the manure into large, sealed anaerobic digesters. Inside these oxygen-free tanks, microorganisms break down the organic material, producing biogas.

The captured biogas then undergoes a rigorous cleaning and upgrading process on-site. Impurities like water, hydrogen sulfide, and carbon dioxide are removed, resulting in biomethane with the same chemical properties as conventional natural gas. This clean, pressurized gas is then fed into the commercial pipeline system, from where Clean Energy Fuels distributes it to its network of refueling stations used by transit buses, municipal garbage trucks, and long-haul freight vehicles across North America.

Expected to produce around 480,000 gasoline-gallon equivalents of negative carbon-intensity fuel annually at full capacity, the Minnesota facility represents a significant step in expanding cleaner fuel options for transportation. It is the fifth such renewable natural gas facility opened by Clean Energy Fuels in the past nine months, underscoring a rapidly growing demand for lower-emission fuels driven by increasingly strict federal and state climate regulations. Fleet operators are increasingly shifting from traditional diesel engines to vehicles powered by compressed natural gas and biomethane to meet these environmental mandates.

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Ash Grove is our fifth renewable natural gas facility to come online in the last nine months. With the growing demand for RNG, and interest really starting to take off as fleets realize how effective and immediate they can fuel cleanly, the RNG produced at Ash Grove will directly help with reducing carbon emissions across the