A Canadian company has not only come up with an ingenious carbon-negative process to produce renewable natural gas (RNG), it can also reduce bovine GHGs through one of its by-products: distiller’s grain protein.

“The protein is pre-digested, so the cows burp less methane,” says Jesse Douglas, CEO of Green Impact Partners (GIP).

GIP is the developer of Future Energy Park, an innovative carbon-negative fuels project situated in an industrial park in southeast Calgary.

The 59-acre facility will feature an RNG bio-digester, an ethanol distillery, a cogeneration plant and a CO2 capture system.

When fully commissioned in early 2025, it will produce approximately 3.5 million mmBtu of RNG, 300 million litres of ethanol, and 400,000 tonnes of carbon offset credits. “Future Energy Park will be the largest carbon negative energy facility in North America and the largest carbon negative RNG facility,” says Douglas.

GIP was formed in June 2021, by a group of veterans from North America’s energy, investment and ESG sectors. “We were looking at how we could achieve net zero in the energy sector; we had the social drives and desire to make a difference, and do it profitably,” says Douglas.

Their first forays into RNG involve facilities at dairy farms in Colorado and Iowa. By investing approximately $100 million per facility, each plant uses the manure from over 10,000 cattle as feedstock to produce approximately 350,000 mmBtu of RNG annually. “We are using a two-part process, with the first part being pre-digestion,” says Douglas. “It results in 30-50 per cent more RNG, as well as dry, usable fertilizer.”

While dairy farmers in Europe have been producing biogas through anaerobic [oxygen free] digestion for several decades, regulations have recently been evolving to create the incentives for similar projects in North America.

Currently, many jurisdictions aiming for net-zero emissions are establishing Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) to measure GHG contributions. Part of the assessment is Carbon Intensity (CI), which weighs the amount of CO2e removed by its production versus the amount released by its use.

Engineers at independent labs calculate CI values for each production process and life cycle. The calculation is then independently verified. A positive CI indicates that more CO2e is released over the full life cycle than removed; conversely, a negative CI indicates a net sequestration.

Future Energy Park is at least an order of magnitude larger than the dairy farms, and is expected to cost over $1 billion. Rather than cow manure, the facility will use non-food grade wheat as feedstock. Several million tonnes of non-food grade wheat is produced in the farming region around Calgary each year, primarily due to adverse conditions like flooding, drought or mold. The company will use over 800,000 tonnes of waste wheat annually, benefiting area farmers with approximately $150 million in direct payments.

Future Energy Park’s RNG and ethanol products also have negative CI values, and will command a premium in the market. When fuel sales and carbon credits are all added up, GIP estimates that Future Energy Park will generate around $300 million EBITDA annually.

Distiller’s grain protein is the icing on the cake. Once the sugars have been extracted from the waste grain, around 235,000 tonnes of leftover mash is dried and shipped back to cattle farmers. “Because it’s high quality, livestock eat up to 50 per cent less, which means less water is consumed, as well,” says Douglas. “The distiller’s grain protein commands a premium of four times the price of regular wheat.”  

The future for facilities similar to Future Energy Park is bright. Currently, less than .1 per cent of the 80 billion ft3/d of gas used in North America is RNG; analysts calculate that figure could rise to 10 per cent by 2040.

GIP estimates that the continent would need the equivalent of 8,000 facilities like the Future Energy Park to meet those requirements. “Obviously, we’ll never see 8,000 plants — it would cost around $8 trillion,” says Douglas.

Rather, GIP expects improved anaerobic digestion and distillation to evolve. “Over the next decade, we’ll see the development of better technologies that will lower capital costs and allow micro-RNG plants close to feedstock.”