Familiar corporate names like Cummins, Freightliner and Waste Management have joined forces with dozens of less-familiar public companies and startups to form what some might call a new U.S. industry. Thousands of commercial trucks powered by compressed natural gas (CNG) are on the roads nationwide, many of them filling up at dedicated fueling stations offering a compressed form of renewable natural gas (RNG), a cellulosic biofuel typically sourced from landfills and dairy farms. In today’s RBN blog, the third and final in our series on the D3 Renewable Identification Number (RIN), we show how this young industry could emerge as a commercial success for cellulosic biofuels, although political and regulatory risk remains.
As we explained in Part 1 of this series, the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) in 2007 set mandates for generating transportation fuels from cellulosic biomass — non-food crops and waste biomass like corn stalks, corncobs, straw, wood, wood byproducts, methane emitted from landfills and animal manure —and other categories of biomass. The focus then was on wood chips and the vision was that, by 2024, 16 billion gallons per year of liquid cellulosic biofuel would be made in process units resembling small refineries. That dream never came close to reality, however, and in Part 2 we told the story of Kior Inc., which spent $600 million on the wood-chips vision before going bankrupt, having generated only $2 million in revenue.
Today, the much more moderate, seemingly achievable goal is that, by 2027, 100 Bcf/year (0.27 Bcf/d) of RNG will be captured from landfills, sewage treatment plants and dairy farm manure piles, piped through existing natural gas distribution systems and a growing network of stations to fuel 20,000 long-haul, heavy-duty trucks. That RNG would substitute for about 300 million gallons per year (MMgal/year; about 20 Mb/d) of diesel, a tiny fraction (roughly 0.5%) of total diesel consumption but a significant step forward for cellulosic biofuels.
(To gain a detailed understanding of the refined products and biofuels markets, and RBN’s perspective on their prospects and challenges, check out the Future of Fuels report by RBN’s Refined Fuels Analytics (RFA) practice.)
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About the song
“On the Road Again” was written by Willie Nelson and appears as the first song on side one, record one of Willie Nelson and Family’s Honeysuckle Rose soundtrack album. Nelson had his first starring role in the movie Honeysuckle Rose and, while on a flight, the film’s producer, Jerry Schatzberg, asked Nelson to come up with a theme song for the movie. Nelson wrote the lyrics for “On the Road Again” on an air-sickness bag before they landed. The song was recorded on Brian Ahern’s Enactron Truck Mobile Studio in Hollywood in the fall of 1979. “On the Road Again” was released as a single in August 1980 and went to #1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, #7 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, and #20 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart. It won Nelson a Grammy Award for Best Country Song. Personnel on the record were: Willie Nelson (lead vocal, guitar), Jody Payne (guitar), Bobbie Nelson (piano), Chris Ethridge (bass), Paul English (drums), and Mickey Raphael (harmonica).
Honeysuckle Rose, the soundtrack album by Willie Nelson and Family, is a double album featuring songs from the film performed by a number of artists, including Emmylou Harris, Johnny Gimble, and Jeannie Seely. Recorded in the fall of 1979 and produced by Willie Nelson, the album was released in July 1980. It went to #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart and #11 on the Billboard 200 Album chart. Three singles were released from the LP.
Willie Nelson is an American country music singer, songwriter, guitarist and actor. One of the founding figures of the “outlaw country” movement in the seventies, Nelson is one of the most popular and recognized figures in country music. He has released 102 studio albums, 14 live albums, 51 compilation albums, two soundtrack albums, and 132 singles. He has appeared in 57 motion pictures and television shows. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the National Agricultural Hall of Fame. He is the recipient of Kennedy Center Honors and the Gershwin Prize from the Library of Congress. Nelson continues to record and tour and is currently on tour in the U.S.
