By: 2019 DC Fellow Charlotte Benishek
Over 350,000 Americans purchased a new all-electric vehicle in 2018. While still a relatively small share of the market, demand for these vehicles is growing rapidly. Electric cars owe much of their popularity to perceptions that driving an electric vehicle reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Yet an electric vehicle is only as clean as the electricity that fuels it. In an ideal world, electric vehicles would all be fueled by low-carbon electricity. For now, the reality is much different. Only a small portion of the electricity powering vehicles comes from renewable sources.
For most people, the phrase “renewable energy” evokes images of wind turbines and solar panels. However, America’s livestock farmers are sitting on their own renewable energy goldmine — manure. If we allow microbes to break down manure in a controlled environment called a digester, they produce methane natural gas that can be captured and burned to produce electricity for electric vehicles.
If the manure decomposes in the traditional way, in an uncontrolled environment, it will also produce methane, but the potent greenhouse gas will be emitted directly into the atmosphere. This both wastes the gas’s potential to generate electricity and contributes to warming. By capturing this methane and putting it to use we are avoiding emitting it directly into the atmosphere while also displacing demand for natural gas from fossil sources.
The benefits of digesters extend beyond climate. Processing manure in digesters reduces the volume of manure that must be disposed of and can help improve relationships with a farm’s neighbors by reducing objectionable odors and water pollution.
In the early 2000’s many livestock farmers began noting digesters’ benefits and constructed them on their farms. Although digesters have many environmental and economic benefits, they can be expensive to construct and require technical expertise to operate. When domestic natural gas production soared amid the fracking boom, prices plummeted and the comparatively expensive natural gas produced by manure digesters could not successfully compete. Facing these unfavorable economics, many farmers took their existing digesters offline, and others lost interest in constructing new ones.
There is a promising solution that would allow renewable natural gas from digesters to compete once again. It lies in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a federal program established in 2004 that requires that renewable fuels replace a portion of fossil-based transportation fuels. As part of the program, producers of renewable fuels receive credits for the renewable fuels they produce. These credits have a monetary value.
In 2014, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that electricity generated by burning methane from digesters and used to power electric vehicles could qualify as a type of biofuel and be awarded the same premium that traditional biofuel producers receive when their liquid fuels are used in vehicles. This is known as the “electric pathway” of the RFS.
Even though the agency has made it clear that it is legally allowed to develop a program to integrate the electric pathway in the RFS, in the five years since this announcement, the EPA has failed to produce the necessary rules and guidance to actually carry out this type of program. As long as the EPA fails to act, our country is not only passing up an opportunity to avoid the potent warming effects of methane produced by uncontrolled manure decomposition, but also forgoing the substantial environmental benefits of digesters, such as reduced odor and nutrient pollution in waterways. Farmers are also losing out on valuable premiums they could be receiving for the renewable electricity they produce.
Since the electric pathway was initially authorized, some important economic and social conditions have shifted. First, livestock farmers, and dairy farmers, in particular, are struggling with some of the lowest prices they have received for their products in decades. Concern over climate change is intensifying and the popularity of electric cars is surging, with the number of electric cars sold in the United States growing 81 percent between 2017 and 2018. Together, these factors provide a compelling case for the EPA to act on integrating “cow power” into the RFS.
While the EPA already has the power to activate the electric pathway, it is ignoring compelling reasons to do. It is time for Congress to step in and compel the agency to implement this program that will help make electric cars truly as green as consumers perceive them to be. The electric pathway benefits not only drivers who want to lessen their climate impact, but also our nation’s farmers and rural communities facing challenging economic headwinds. Congress must pass legislation directing the EPA to implement this long-awaited program that will enable our nation’s farmers to take advantage of the renewable resource already on their farms by putting it to good use in electric vehicles.
