據油氣新聞6月22日消息稱，想想象一下，如果你想要一種不受時間和天氣限制的可再生能源。一種可再生能源，其表面的潛力剛剛被挖掘出來。也也許在當今的政治環境中，最重要的是，可再生能源的來源不依賴于敵對國家主導的供應鏈作為其原料來源，而是依賴于美國的家庭農場。

　　這正是先鋒可再生能源公司及其新任首席執行官Joel Gay從事的業務。該公司專注于將糞便和食物垃圾轉化為可再生天然氣(RNG)。RNG生產后剩下的部分會被轉化為有機肥料，將產生的糞便和食物垃圾中的營養物質返回土壤進行再次循環利用，并將成噸的廢物轉移到垃圾填埋場或焚化爐。

　　RNG是第一個碳負能量來源，因為它是由有機物產生的，否則會被釋放為強大的溫室氣體。因此，先鋒公司正在幫助星巴克和聯合利華等公司實現“到2050年實現凈零排放”的承諾。這一承諾在主要能源和消費品公司中已成為一種時尚。

　　對每個人來說，好消息是這個行業在很大程度上具有可擴展性。先鋒公司由兩位企業家于2014年創立的，已經在美國50個州中的17個州有農場在開發中，并且正在著手一項大規模擴張的計劃。為了管理公司的擴張，公司剛剛宣布招聘新的首席執行官Joel Gay。

　　先鋒公司已經是全國厭氧消化生產 RNG 的最大企業之一，將在這一增長中發揮主導作用。Gay表示：“就增長潛力而言，它是相對無限的。”

　　他說:“業務分為有機和農業兩大類。在有機方面，我們結合了糞便和有機可回收材料——這是不合格的食品，變質的食品，有機液體或有機固體。我們將所有這些混合成均勻的漿液，然后送入我們的厭氧消化池。因此，在有機方面，我們最終得到大概是兩種肥料和八種有機材料的結合。”

　　Gay 說，目前的商業模式是針對大型城市中心，這些中心有各種有機材料的來源——餐館、雜貨店等——可以聚集成足夠大的數量，以創造規模經濟。

　　朱佳妮 摘譯自 油氣新聞

　　原文如下：

　　Renewable Natural Gas Set For Disruptive Growth

　　Imagine if you will a renewable source of energy without constraints of time of day or weather. A renewable source of energy whose surface of potential is just now being scratched. Perhaps most importantly in today’s political environment, a source of renewable energy that does not rely on supply chains dominated by adversarial nations as the source of its feedstock, but America’s family farms instead.

　　That is the line of business in which Vanguard Renewables and its new CEO, Joel Gay, are engaged. It is a business focused on converting manure and food waste into renewable natural gas (RNG). What remains following the production of RNG is then turned into organic fertilizer, returning the nutrients from the manure and food waste produced back to the soil to be recycled again and diverting tons of waste that would have otherwise gone into landfills or incinerators.

　　RNG is the first carbon-negative energy source since it is produced from organic matter that would otherwise be released as a powerful greenhouse gas. As a result, Vanguard is helping companies like Starbucks and Unilever meet their “net-zero by 2050” pledges that have become a fad among major energy and consumer goods companies.

　　The positive news for everyone is that this industry is scalable in a major way. Vanguard, which was founded in 2014 by a pair of entrepreneurs, already has farms in development in 17 of the 50 U.S. states and is embarking on a plan for major expansion. To manage that expansion the company just announced the hiring of a new Chief Executive Officer, Joel Gay.

　　Vanguard, already one of the biggest players in the production of RNG by anaerobic digestion nationally, stands to play the leading role in that growth. “In terms of the growth potential, it is relatively unlimited,” Gay said.

　　“The business is bifurcated between organic and Ag. On the organic side, we are combining both manure and organic recyclable material – this is off-spec food, spoiled food, organic liquids or organic solids. We combine all of those into a homogenous slurry, which is then fed to our anaerobic digesters. So, on the organic side, we end up with roughly 2 parts manure combined with 8 parts organic materials.”

　　Gay said that currently the business model is to target big urban centers with a variety of sources for this organic material – restaurants, grocery stores, etc. – that can be aggregated into large enough volumes to create economies of scale.