Colorado: A Showcase for Communities Turning Wastewater Plant Biogases into Clean Vehicle Fuel

In May of 2016, Energy Vision and the Denver Metro Clean Cities Coalition co-sponsored the first statewide workshop on the potential for converting Colorado’s organic wastes to clean fuel, especially for the state’s truck and bus fleets.

Summer 2021

The City of Boulder 75th Street Wastewater Treatment Facility. Colorado has emerged as a national leader in demonstrating small municipal renewable natural gas (RNG) projects, as highlighted in our RNG report: “A Step-by-Step Guide for Communities“.

“The State,” said EV’s Founder Joanna Underwood “is rich in RNG feedstocks. Its 11 large wastewater treatment plants are one valuable resource.” At the time of our workshop there was one wastewater RNG project, at the Persigo wastewater treatment plant in Grand Junction — the first organic waste-to-fuel project in the state. There are now four RNG projects at Colorado wastewater facilities.

Since 2016, the renewable natural gas produced at Grand Junction’s Persigo wastewater plant has been powering roughly 80 municipal vehicles and transit buses. Prominently featured at Energy Vision’s Denver workshop, the project has been both noticed and replicated—three more Colorado wastewater plants have joined it in turning biogas into vehicle fuel, displacing a total of one million gallons of high carbon diesel and cutting an estimated 22 million pounds of CO2 emissions a year.

The wastewater treatment plant in Englewood finished installing its RNG system in 2019, and now exports the equivalent of 640,000 gallons of fuel annually to out-of-state vehicle markets.
In Boulder, a cogeneration system running on wastewater biogas was replaced in 2020 by an RNG project that now fuels up to 38 local garbage trucks.
In Longmont, the wastewater treatment plant is now converting the biogas it produces into fuel for local vehicles, including 16 municipal garbage trucks.

Colorado’s projects demonstrate how individual communities can join the global fight against climate change by thinking locally and using their core infrastructure to convert their “waste” into clean, low-carbon vehicle fuel.

For other communities interested in producing RNG fuel from their wastewater plants, contact Energy Vision at admin@energy-vision.org. We may organize a virtual or real tour of such plants, discussing how they can be implemented, their costs and economic and climate change benefits.

More from our Summer 2021 Issue

The Largest Anaerobic Digester in the Northeast Starts Producing RNG

In the rolling hills of Vermont, the 2,400-acre, fourth-generation Goodrich Family Farm is home to 900 cows whose milk is sold to the Agri-Mark dairy cooperative for local cheese production. But now it is home to more!

Letter From The Founder

The most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by the world’s leading climate scientists has reinforced what every human living on this earth is now seeing with his or her own eyes: the horrors of a planet whose warming has unleashed massive wildfires, heatwaves, floods, droughts, and the melting of our planet’s polar ice caps.

United Nations Publishes EV’s Clean Fuel Recommendations

On July 6th 2021, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) published recommendations by Energy Vision (EV) to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

RNG around the World

As a core component of its work, Energy Vision focuses on the intersection of waste management and sustainable transportation—the potential for fueling heavy duty vehicles with ultra-low-emissions renewable natural gas (biomethane) made from organic wastes.