SOLAR: In Kings County, Enexco ( EDF – based in France) plans to build a 20MW solar facility on Corcoran Irrigation District land near Corcoran. The project released their public notice this week.The company is leasing 200 acres of a 560 acre parcel.
In Kern County the Pioneer Green Energy Solar Project requests approval of three Conditional Use Permits (CUPs), Lot Line Adjustment 28-11 and the cancellation of Williamson Act Land Use contracts 11-5 and 11-6, to allow for the construction and operation of 3 solar electrical generating facilities on a combined 720 acres in the A Zone District, which would generate a combined 125 megawatts (MW) of renewable electrical energy. All three project sites are located in unincorporated areas of western Kern County, near Lost Hills.
NATURAL GAS: BNSF Railway has confirmed it will test the use of natural gas on their locomotives instead of diesel. If successful, the experiment could provide a new outlet for a abundant supply of cheap natural gas in North America.
Meanwhile the Ford Motor Co. said recently that it sold a record 11,600 natural gas vehicles in the 2012 model year year, more than four times the number it sold two years ago. General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group recently added natural gas pickup trucks to their offerings. On the car front Honda Motor Co. is selling more natural gas Civics.
Plentiful natural gas is is adding customers -particularly for truck fleets, buses, and taxis. One analyst is predicting 10% growth for nat gas use in transportation over the next five years.
TULARE: The Harvest-Tulare composting facility currently holds operating permits to compost green material, food, and dairy manure. The proposed project will increase and shift types of materials and quantities accepted at the facility. Harvest Power California LLC is proposing to add an anaerobic digester to the existing Harvest-Tulare composting operations to process organic materials into fuel and digestate that will contribute to soil amendment production. Both a high solids digester (processing food and green material) and a low solids digester (processing primarily food material) alternatives will be evaluated in the environmental document.
The proposed project will increase total tonnage at the site from 86,000 tons per year to a potential 216,000 tons per year. The increase includes both the proposed anaerobic digester and increasing tonnages at the composting facility. The facility will produce transportation fuel either through a compressed natural gas (CNG) refueling station or by injecting directly into a nearby natural gas pipeline. Therefore, both a CNG refueling station and direct injection to the natural gas pipeline will be evaluated.