Making Renewable Natural Gas From Pig Poo

Smithfield Foods is the largest hog farmer in the United States, slaughtering more than 114,000 of the animals every day.

All those hogs create an ungodly amount of what we shall delicately call “effluent” 😉

Much of those emissions are composed of methane. Most natural gas pipelines are perfectly capable of pumping methane as well.

With 6 million customers in 19 states, Dominion Energy is a pretty big company in its own right. Now Smithfield and Dominion have formed a partnership that aims to capture some of that methane and convert it into what they call “renewable natural gas.”

The new partnership will be known as Align Renewable Natural Gas with facilities in North Carolina, Virginia and Utah.

Thomas F. Farrell, II, CEO of Dominion Energy  describes renewable natural gas as “an innovative and proven way to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture industry by converting it into clean renewable energy.”

The energy produced will be used to power local businesses and heat residential homes. Dominion says the captured methane will lower the use of traditionally sourced (i.e. fracked) natural gas and keep some greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference- Cleantechnica, Dominion Energy website