The push towards renewable natural gas usage could be a costly move for many agricultural businesses in California. Executive Director of the Agricultural Energy Consumers Association, Michael Boccadoro said that replacing fossil natural gas with renewable natural gas has great potential. Taking organic waste and turning it into an energy source can be very practical in many applications. However, when it comes to large commercial and industrial operations like food processing facilities, the practice does not fit economically.
“It’s not a solution for these large customers because it’s extremely, extremely expensive. It’s at a minimum five times as expensive and more likely 10 to 15 times as expensive. That will be a killer for any of these businesses that are so energy intensive and so much of their cost of operations is related to natural gas usage,” Boccadoro noted. “We’ve got to start exploring some of these other solutions because the ones that are being proposed are not solutions.”
Listen to the radio report below.
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