California says biofuels gasification must produce zero emissions to be OK for state

In California, the state Senate Environmental Quality Committee has voted to amend AB 222 legislation so that, while electricity produced from landfill gas receives credit under the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, gasification of MSW to produce electricity before it enters the landfill will not. According to proponents, gasification can recover five times as much energy from MSW as landfill gas. The statute requires biorefineries produce “no discharges of air contaminants or emissions, including greenhouse gases…”

Jim Stewart, chairman of the BioEnergy Producers Association, commented, “This is an impossible standard of performance–one required of no other manufacturing facility, refinery or power plant in the state, not even other renewable energy projects.”

A downloadable copy of Stewart’s remarks at the Pacific Southwest Organic Residuals Symposium is available here.