CalBio and Chevron team up with local farmers to bring renewable natural gas

California Bioenergy and Chevron announced they are teaming up with local farmers to help bring renewable natural gas production to Kern County.

This is a first step to provide affordable, reliable, and cleaner energy to California consumers.

Manure storage on dairy farms results in the release of methane, a greenhouse gas. CalBio brings technology and operational experience to help build digesters and methane capture projects to convert this methane to a beneficial use as renewable natural gas.

CalBio, dairy farmers and Chevron are providing funding for digester projects across three geographic clusters in Kern, Tulare and Kings counties. As they are completed, these projects will mitigate the dairies’ methane emissions and reduce greenhouse emissions from livestock.

The dairy biomethane projects are designed to send dairy biogas to a centralized processing facility where it will be upgraded to renewable natural gas and injected into local utility SoCalGas’ pipeline.

The renewable natural gas is then marketed as an alternative fuel for heavy-duty trucks and buses.

“These projects bring so many win-wins – they help create local jobs, improve local air quality by producing renewable natural gas for use in low-NOX emission fleets, and reduce dairy methane emissions," said N. Ross Buckenham, CalBio’s CEO.