by Adam Voight Adam Voight

$80 Million grant aims to make regenerative farming practice a moneymaker for farmers

Keeping plants continuously growing on farmland through the winter protects and enriches the soil, improves water quality, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. That’s why Lisa Schulte Moore, a natural resource ecology and management professor at Iowa State University, is working to make the year-round covered ground a conventional practice.

“My vision is that when we drive around Iowa in December, we don’t see a single bare field,” she said.

While the use of cover crops is growing, it’s far from common. A new grant of up to $80 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will fund a project meant to spur more farmers to plant cover crops and perennial prairie grass through both direct payments and a demonstration of how harvested winter-hearty crops and grass can be processed into renewable natural gas.

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by RoesleinAE RoesleinAE

Smithfield Foods, Inc. and Roeslein Alternative Energy Continue Development of Manure-to-Energy Projects in Missouri

Published by GlobeNewswire

Projects to produce enough renewable natural gas to power more than 2,700 homes and businesses

Smithfield Foods, Inc. and Roeslein Alternative Energy (RAE) announced an additional $45 million investment in their Monarch Bioenergy joint venture, which captures methane from hog manure to produce renewable natural gas (RNG) in Missouri. The additional investment will enable the continued implementation of “manure-to-energy” projects on Smithfield’s farms, resulting in RNG generation across 85% of the company’s hog finishing spaces in the state.

 

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by RoesleinAE RoesleinAE

Three CA LCFS pathway applications for swine manure to Bio-CNG, Bio-LNG, and Bio-L-CNG; negative triple digit CIs

Published by Green Car Congress

Element Markets Renewable Energy (EMRE) has filed applications for certification of three California LCFS (Low Carbon Fuel Standard) Tier 2 pathways for biomethane (Bio-CNG, Bio-LNG, and Bio-L-CNG) from anaerobic digestion of swine manure produced by Valley View Farms located in Greencastle, Missouri. The calculated carbon intensities are -345.68, -334.41, and -330.87 gCO2e/MJ, respectively.

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by RoesleinAE RoesleinAE

Element Markets Renewable Energy’s Agreement With Monarch Bioenergy Extended for Five Additional Years

Published by The State Journal

Written by: Randall Lack

Element Markets Renewable Energy (EMRE)  has been awarded a five-year contract by ​ ​​​​​Monarch Bioenergy (Monarch) —​a joint venture between Smithfield Foods, Inc. and Roeslein Alternative Energy (RAE). The contract names EMRE as the exclusive marketer for the renewable natural gas (RNG) produced at Monarch’s biomethane production facilities in Northern Missouri. Monarch converts hog manure collected from Smithfield Hog Production farms in that state into RNG, while simultaneously delivering ecological services and developing wildlife habitat. Through this joint venture, all Smithfield company-owned finishing farms in Missouri will have the infrastructure to produce RNG, resulting in approximately 1.3 million dekatherms annually once completed, which is the equivalent of eliminating 130,000 gasoline vehicles from the road.

 

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