Bringing More Than Milk to the Market: A Look at RNG

With the drive to become carbon neutral by 2050, America’s dairy farms bring more than milk to the market. They are looking to exchange carbon credits for dollars. Only a few months away from completing the installation of a manure digester, Arizona dairy farmers Craig and Heather Caballero, who own and operate Caballero Dairy outside of Eloy, will also be in the carbon exchange market.

The Caballeros milk 5,200 cows in a 72-cow rotary and anticipate generating 214 MMBtu of renewable natural gas daily from their manure digester.

“We decided to venture into the carbon credit sector for several reasons,” Craig says. “The number one reason being we wanted to be continuous stewards of the land and the environment, meeting the needs and demands of our customers and also building a better tomorrow.” 

The natural gas generated from the digesters will be delivered into the El Paso Natural Gas Pipeline, owned by Kinder Morgan. The project will be owned and operated by Brightmark RNG Holdings LLC, a Brightmark platform in partnership with Chevron U.S.A. Inc. 

According to Mark Stoermann, Newtrient COO, 250 dairies are currently building or running digester systems and 20% of the projects came online in the last five years.

“With the current demand and programs supporting RNG that number of farms can increase by another 20% or more in the next five years,” he says.

Caballero understands the rise in interest by fellow producers and says another benefit of venturing into the carbon credit is the opportunity to have a secondary cash flow. One more reason that the Arizona producer decided to put in a digester was to help reduce the dairy’s fertilizer costs, which they expect will be a substantial saving.

“We can better capture the nutrients coming off the digester,” Caballero says. “Plus save on our fertilizer bill.”

To learn if renewable energy will work for your farm, click here to see the outlined steps from step one all the way to breaking ground. Will Renewable Natural Gas RNG Work on Your Farm - Newtrient