Smithfield Foods & Dominion Energy Partner To Make Renewable Natural Gas From Pig Poo
Smithfield Foods is the largest hog farmer in the United States, slaughtering more than 114,000 of the animals every day. All those hogs create an ungodly amount of what we shall delicately call “effluent,” most of which gets collected in enormous lagoons. Don’t stand downwind from one on a hot summer day — the aroma flowing upward and outward from one could peel the chrome off the front bumper of a 57 Buick.
Much of those emissions are composed of methane — the primary component of natural gas. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, so letting it escape from hog farms into the atmosphere promotes a warmer climate and wastes what could potentially be a valuable resource. Most natural gas pipelines are perfectly capable of pumping methane as well.
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With 6 million customers in 19 states, Dominion Energy is a pretty big company in its own right. Now Smithfield and Dominion have formed a partnership that aims to capture some of that methane and convert it into what they call “renewable natural gas.” The new partnership will be known as Align Renewable Natural Gas with facilities in North Carolina, Virginia and Utah.
The energy produced will be used to power local businesses and heat residential homes. Dominion says the captured methane will lower the use of traditionally sourced (i.e. fracked) natural gas and keep some greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere.
“Our companies recognize the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the future of our planet,” Thomas F. Farrell, II, CEO of Dominion Energy tells CNBC. He describes renewable natural gas as “an innovative and proven way to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture industry by converting it into clean renewable energy.”
Well, hang on a minute there, Tom. True, methane from pig feces doesn’t need to be ripped from the Earth via drilling and fracking. That’s good news. But let’s not pretend it creates no carbon emissions when burned. There’s a strong aroma of greenwashing to this story. Still, some progress on emissions is better than none.
There’s a pretty good chance Smithfield Foods has not been swayed by the calls lately by climate scientists to greatly reduce or eliminate meat from the world’s dietary options. Like many other traditional companies, it is perfectly happy to burnish its “green” credentials so long as its business model and resulting profits remain undisturbed.
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