JBS USA, GreenGasUSA partner to produce renewable natural gas from waste

GREELEY —   JBS USA and GreenGasUSA have partnered to produce renewable natural gas at multiple JBS beef and poultry processing facilities across the country by repurposing the facilities’ waste streams.

JBS reports that it will install GreenGasUSA’s on-site gas upgrading system, which collects wastewater streams from its facilities and purifies it into “pipeline quality” natural gas, according to a press release. This system also will serve the dual duty of capturing methane.

“At JBS and Pilgrim’s, we’re committed to reducing the impact of food production by partnering with stakeholders to reduce our carbon footprint. This collaboration with GreenGasUSA is a perfect example of these efforts,” Wesley Batista Filho, CEO of JBS Foods USA said in a news release. “This innovative approach takes what was once an unused byproduct of food production and transforms it to offset a significant amount of fossil fuels. This process can be a model for the rest of the industry to follow.”

JBS will start the program at its facilities in Grand Island, Nebraska, and Hyrum, Utah, and at the Pilgrim’s Sumter, South Carolina, facility, the release stated.

This collaboration is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at these facilities while improving wastewater operations and local air and water quality, while supporting the renewable energy market. The project at Pilgrim’s South Carolina facility is scheduled to be completed in early 2025, while the Nebraska and Utah projects should be complete by the end of 2025.

Converting biogas into a renewable fuel in these facilities will reduce emissions that are equivalent to 60 million miles driven by a car, or 26 million pounds of coal burned annually, the release stated.

Since 2019, JBS has initiated more than 25 projects globally to eliminate, or capture and destroy, methane emissions from organic waste lagoons at JBS facilities. Many of these projects additionally include converting anaerobic systems to aerobic, thereby eliminating methane emissions; or using the captured biogas to generate renewable electricity; or producing Renewable Natural Gas for pipeline distribution, the release stated.

GreenGasUSA has operational RNG facilities at agricultural and food-processing sources across the country. GreenGasUSA is majority owned by the IFM Net Zero Infrastructure Fund. IFM NZIF is an open-ended fund, managed by IFM Investors, which targets essential infrastructure assets that seek to accelerate the world’s transition to a net-zero emissions economy, the release stated.