In my last Biomass Magazine column, I wrote about the enormous potential of biogas in meeting our transportation needs and as a component of a diverse fuel mix. New projects and data are demonstrating that biogas as a transportation fuel is no longer a vision, but a market reality. Under both the federal renewable fuel standard 2 (RFS2) and California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, biogas is an emerging contributor to a diverse, low-carbon fuel mix. While progress is encouraging, there is still a large amount of untapped potential, leaving plenty of room for expansion and opportunity for innovative project models.Biogas as Transportation Fuel: A Strong Start
July 22, 2013 in Transportation & Fuels Author: Amanda BilekIn my last Biomass Magazine column, I wrote about the enormous potential of biogas in meeting our transportation needs and as a component of a diverse fuel mix. New projects and data are demonstrating that biogas as a transportation fuel is no longer a vision, but a market reality. Under both the federal renewable fuel standard 2 (RFS2) and California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, biogas is an emerging contributor to a diverse, low-carbon fuel mix. While progress is encouraging, there is still a large amount of untapped potential, leaving plenty of room for expansion and opportunity for innovative project models.
Biogas energy systems have typically been considered a source of renewable electricity and/or combined heat and power, but several projects across the U.S. are demonstrating the suitability of biogas as a transportation fuel. Using biogas as a supply source of lower-carbon, domestic, renewable fuel is an exciting prospect, even in the face of abundant natural gas supplies and low prices. 
I am honored to be writing my first column for Biomass Magazine focused on the U.S. biogas sector. I have worked on biogas energy systems for the past decade, and it is exciting to finally be at a point where increased interest in this valuable and underutilized technology is starting to build. But make no mistake, there is far more work to be done to fully take advantage of the enormous potential of biogas. 
The United States has an enormous amount of untapped potential for collecting biogas from organic waste streams to produce useful forms of energy. Most of the U.S. biogas development in the last 20 years has used dairy manure as a feedstock source. Development has also occurred at wastewater treatment facilities or food processing facilities with a wastewater stream. 
