WORKSHOP: Cow Power- Turning Organic Waste into Vehicle Fuel for Vermont
WHAT: At this workshop, Cow Power: Turning Organic Waste into Vehicle Fuel for Vermont, attendees will learn how municipal and commercial food and yard wastes, manure and other organics from farms and dairies can be converted into a clean, close-to-carbon-neutral fuel for truck and bus fleets. Vermont’s Secretary of Agriculture, Food, and Markets Chuck Ross, will provide the event’s opening remarks.
WHEN: Wednesday, April 23rd, 8:30 am to 3:00 pm, at the UVM Billings Center in Burlington.
WHY: Vermont has the opportunity to harness a valuable energy resource, build a new green fuel industry, produce a fuel that can cut the State’s heavy reliance on imported oil, with its $1 billion annual price tag, and significantly reduce the 47% of the State’s greenhouse gases that come from transportation (twice the national average). This new valuable resource, long considered “garbage,” is the tens of thousands of tons of organic wastes generated every year by communities, businesses, and agricultural operations. This workshop will:
· Introduce Vermont municipal, state and business leaders to national and local experts some of whom are successfully converting their “garbage into gold” today.
· Describe existing technologies for extracting the biogas created wherever organic wastes are decomposing, and refining them into a renewable form of natural gas. Biogas can be collected from wastes in landfills, at wastewater treatment plants, or processed separately inspecial tanks called “anaerobic digesters” where remaining solids and liquids can be used for soil amendments.
· Explore environmental and economic benefits of growing this new green fuel industry in Vermont and the public-private partnerships that make for successful projects.
· Discuss how this strategy can help meet the State’s ambitious energy independence and greenhouse gas reduction goals, and policies that can support progress.
WHO: Hosted by Vermont Clean Cities Coalition, the UVM Transportation Research Center, and Energy Vision, a national environmental organization and authority on alternative fuels. Co-sponsors include: Casella Waste, Vermont Gas, The High Meadows Fund, and the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets.
Vermont Gas serves almost 50,000 customers in Franklin and Chittenden counties and is currently working to expand service into Addison and Rutland counties through the Addison-Rutland Natural Gas Project. The company’s long heritage for safe and reliable operations includes its award-winning energy-efficiency programs, which reduce energy use while saving $13 million annually for homes and businesses. For more information about the Addison-Rutland Natural Gas Project, visit www.addisonrutlandnaturalgas.com.
United States