Despite “Renewable” Credentials, Biogas Is Threatening Our Clean Energy Future
By Adenike Adeyeye and Maria Hart
This blog is part of a series focused on the inequitable, false promises of the energy transition.
Caption: Waste lagoons from a North Carolina swine facility (left) discharge raw waste to nearby streams (right). These polluting lagoons have become a source of money due to the burgeoning biogas industry. Source: Flickr/Waterkeeper Alliance, Inc.
When Hurricane Florence dumped a record-breaking 36 inches of rain on eastern North Carolina in September of 2018, it left 40 people dead and caused $24 billion in damages. It also led to the leakage of more than 7 million gallons of untreated animal waste into local waterways.
This animal waste—a lot of which is pink-colored sludge produced by the 9 million pigs living in North Carolina—is often stored in open-air waste “lagoons” near concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). The sludge contains pollutants like fecal bacteria, nitrogen, phosphorus, and ammonia that, even without rain, can pose serious health risks to residents living nearby. The lagoons also smell terrible and emit greenhouse gasses.
Despite these problems, megacorporations like Smithfield Foods do not see waste lagoons as unhealthy cesspools that need to be cleaned up, but rather as a source of a money-making fuel known as biogas. Biogas is created when bacteria break down waste and other organic materials in a process called anaerobic digestion. The raw gas is then refined into biomethane and transported via natural gas pipelines. Biogas supporters market biogas produced from waste lagoons on factory farms as “renewable” natural gas (RNG). Biogas advocates and corporations that stand to gain from selling waste as energy have successfully gained support at both state and federal levels for this supposedly “clean” energy alternative.
“Saying that biogas is good for people and the planet is like putting lipstick on a pig—or, in this case, the waste of millions of factory-farmed pigs (and cows, and chickens…).”
Calling biogas “renewable” or “clean” greenwashes unhealthy and polluting agricultural practices. Incentivizing biogas production makes adopting better waste management systems and cleaner fuel alternatives less appealing to corporations who could make money from selling biogas. Saying that biogas is good for people and the planet is like putting lipstick on a pig—or, in this case, the waste of millions of factory-farmed pigs (and cows, and chickens…).
The Dirty Underbelly of “Renewable” Natural Gas
A new policy brief from the Equity Fund, Biogas: A Polluting Source, Greenwashed, debunks claims of biogas being a clean, renewable energy source and explains why the burgeoning biogas industry should not be part of the clean energy future. Here’s why:
Biogas production facilities harm local communities. Capturing biogas from CAFOs requires a continuous supply of animal waste which often produces intolerable odors and can be toxic if it leaks into waterways. Regions that are prone to strong storms and hurricanes, such as North Carolina, are particularly susceptible to waterway contamination as a result of lagoon failure.
Producing biogas also releases toxic byproducts, including ammonia and nitrogen dioxide, that researchers have tied to lung damage, cardiovascular impacts, low birth weight, and premature death. Life expectancy in counties that contain a high number of CAFOs remains low. A Title VI civil rights complaint against lax permitting for CAFOs cited a recent study from the National Academy of Sciences with alarming results: In Sampson County and Duplin County – the two eastern North Carolina counties with the majority of the state’s 2,100 CAFOs (and where most of the proposed biogas project sites are located) – more than 175 premature deaths per year were linked to ammonia emissions from hog farms.
The location of biogas production sites is unjust. Many of the residents most at risk from pollution related to biogas production live in low-income communities and/or are Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC). When the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality conducted an environmental justice report on hog operations in the state, it found that communities surrounding CAFOs had disproportionately higher Black, Latiné, and low-wealth populations (as high as five times more, according to another study). And this is not just a North Carolina problem: in California and Washington state, communities near dairy CAFOs are predominantly Latine. In Missouri, counties with the most CAFOs also have disproportionately more residents living in poverty. Biomethane also needs to travel across the country in miles of natural gas pipelines, and many of those pipelines leak methane and travel through BIPOC communities.
Biogas exacerbates climate change. Burning refined biogas—biomethane—is just as bad for the climate as burning fossil gas. Biomethane is made up of 90 percent methane, which has a global warming potential of 27-30 (compared to carbon dioxide’s global warming potential of 1).
Government Subsidies for Biogas Prop up the Fossil Fuel Industry
Creating biomethane from biogas is extremely expensive. According to one estimate, it costs $294 to produce $68 of methane using anaerobic digestion of animal waste. Other estimates show that refined biogas can cost more than five times as much as fossil gas. Without government subsidies and support, the majority of biomethane would not be on the market.
“Without government subsidies and support, the majority of biomethane would not be on the market.”
When biomethane is considered a “bridge” fuel (like it has been in Nevada) or qualifies for low-carbon fuel standard programs (like what’s been proposed at the national level and in California), the biggest winners are fossil gas companies whose pipelines will benefit from new sources of biomethane.
When livestock farmers (and the corporations that own them) receive subsidies for the construction of biogas facilities on CAFOs, incentives to upgrade their waste management practices disappear—the more animal waste that is pumped into lagoons, the more money they can make from the biogas that comes out of it, and the worse off our climate is.
Pushing Back Against Greenwashed Gas
In 2021, the Southern Environmental Law Center, along with the NAACP and the North Carolina Poor People’s Campaign, filed a formal complaint against North Carolina’s fast tracking of new biogas permits claiming that they violated the Civil Rights Act. Other actions and lawsuits in states like California and Nevada are shedding light on some of the serious environmental justice concerns associated with new biogas and biodiesel projects and are providing strong legal arguments for removing biogas subsidies.
The good news is that there are alternatives to biogas (and natural gas) out there that are cheaper, healthier, and more environmentally friendly. These include things like implementing better waste management practices on CAFOs, enacting zero waste policies, and investing in truly clean and renewable energy technology like wind and solar. Our energy policy must course correct away from biogas incentives and towards a clean energy future that is actually clean, before it’s too late.
For more information on the problems with waste incineration and alternative policy paths, check out the full policy brief.
Adenike Adeyeye is a state strategist at the Equity Fund. Maria Hart is an editorial consultant to the Equity Fund.
