Could Florida electric bills go up because of a fuel made from manure?

A bill advancing through the Florida Legislature that would entice utility companies to invest in “renewable natural gas” could cost Florida residents if signed into law, according to energy watchdog groups.

“Renewable natural gas” is made from a complex process that converts the climate-warming gas emitted by animal manure at large farms, for example, into a substance similar to the natural gas that is drilled from the earth. Proponents say it could help Florida become less reliant on natural gas shipped in from elsewhere, possibly giving utility customers more stable energy prices.

Most electricity in Florida is generated by power plants burning natural gas to produce energy.

But opponents cautioned that the bill in the Legislature, which was written by a utility company, is likely to increase Floridians’ costs because it could make it easier for utility companies to pass production costs of building renewable natural gas infrastructure on to consumers.

And while renewable natural gas is subsidized by the state of California and the federal government to address climate change, some environmentalists argue that the substance does more harm than good.

But let’s back up. How will something that starts out as cow manure actually impact your electric bill? Here are a few things to know:

What is “renewable natural gas?”

It’s a type of fuel that has rapidly gained more attention and government incentives as proponents have viewed it as part of the solution to climate change. A popular source of the fuel is animal manure. It can also be derived from wastewater and landfills.

The process starts with creating conditions with minimal oxygen. The manure will be left to stagnate in a pool. In these conditions, the manure emits methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Then a container called a “digestor” takes that methane, concentrates it and processes it into a substance that can eventually be pumped into pipelines.

Is it actually clean energy?

Not completely. Burning renewable natural gas emits a similar amount of carbon dioxide to traditional natural gas. That means when power plants burn it to make energy, they will produce a similar amount of emissions.

A more complicated question is whether it’s cleaner than using traditional natural gas alone.

Proponents of this energy source argue that since animal manure, wastewater and landfills were already going to emit methane into the air, using renewable natural gas can reduce the amount of fossil natural gas needed, and thus reduce emissions overall.

Environmentalists push back on this. It is not inevitable that large-scale farms have to emit as much methane as they do — if governments better regulated manure storage, they could reduce the emissions. Instead renewable natural gas rewards farms with profit for how much methane they produce.

Because there’s money to be made from the methane, opponents say the adoption of renewable natural gas keeps our society hooked on pipelines, slowing down the construction of new infrastructure to support other energy sources like solar and wind. No matter how widely digestors are adopted, the demand for natural gas is too great in the United States to come close to completely replacing fossil-derived natural gas with this newer substance, experts said.

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“It is our belief that we should displace every molecule of this fossil gas that we can, even if (renewable natural gas) only ends up as one portion of the overall gas mix,” said Dylan Chase, a spokesperson for The Coalition for Renewable Natural Gas, a Sacramento, California, group whose members include utility companies in Florida and elsewhere, plus multiple universities. “Doesn’t it make more sense to use the methane created from waste left behind in Florida, by Floridians, rather than simply ferrying in fossil gas from Texas, Louisiana and elsewhere?”

What are Florida lawmakers proposing to do?

Senate Bill 480, sponsored by Sen. Nick DiCeglie, R-Indian Rocks Beach, would allow the Public Service Commission to establish an “experimental” way for utility companies to pass along the cost of building renewable natural gas infrastructure to their customers. The bill offers limited details on how this would work, other than saying the commission, which regulates utility companies, can decide whether yearly hearings are needed to discuss adding these costs to consumers’ electricity bills.

The bill has received minimal pushback, often getting bipartisan unanimous votes in committee stops along the way. A similar bill has passed one committee in the House.

Where did this idea come from?

Senate Bill 480 was originally written by Chesapeake Utilities, emails provided to the Tampa Bay Times from the Energy and Policy Institute, a utility watchdog group, show. Chesapeake, through a subsidiary called Florida Public Utilities Co., provides natural gas to Floridians, including in Hillsborough and Hernando counties. The emails were first reported by the Miami Herald.

Chesapeake has a renewable natural gas facility under construction in northern Florida to process the methane produced by a dairy farm.

In addition to sending the bill language to DiCeglie’s legislative aide, the emails show a Chesapeake lobbyist making specific, line-by-line notes about the bill’s wording. One of the lobbyist’s requests was to remove a phrase from last year’s version of the proposal that required the Public Service Commission to ensure that any increase in electric bills “will not result in an undue hardship to customers.” It was not in the version filed this year.

“When we look at these bills and the fact they’re coming from corporations … and the fact the wording pushes for more gas, I think that is very concerning,” said Alissa Jean Schafer, a research and communications manager at the Energy and Policy Institute. “It just screams greenwashing.”

DiCeglie did not respond to two voicemails and a text message requesting an interview.

In an email, Brianna Patterson, a spokesperson for Chesapeake, said that the “undue hardship” phrase was deleted because it was not consistent with language used in the rest of that chapter of state law. Still, “there are numerous important consumer protections in this bill, as it includes language that ensures the Public Service Commission has robust oversight over (renewable natural gas) projects in the state,” she said.

Will this cost me money?

The bill sets the stage for utility companies to be able to charge customers to build renewable natural gas facilities, which cost millions. If that happens, Floridians would see additional charges in their electric bills. It’s unclear at this time exactly how much it could cost individual residents.

When asked during a committee hearing how this could impact what customers pay, DiCeglie didn’t answer directly.

“This bill doesn’t speak to rate increases, decreases,” he said. “In many ways, I believe since this is an energy diversification legislation, you could make the argument that it could lower bills in the long run. So … there’s a big question mark there.”

Chase, the spokesperson for the renewable natural gas advocacy group, said that because this fuel can be used anywhere fossil natural gas is used, it is “one of the lowest-cost ways to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.”

What could this mean?

Because the state of California and the federal government subsidize the development of these facilities around the country, there has been a “gold rush” of companies trying to get into the business, said Danny Cullenward, a senior fellow with the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania and the vice chairperson of California’s Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee.

That allows the companies that build renewable natural gas facilities to reap big profits. Under the California program, for example, gasoline companies operating in that state will pay money to renewable natural gas facilities elsewhere — like Florida — to comply with California carbon standards and essentially offset their negative impact to the climate, Cullenward said.

While the Florida bill would allow customers to pay for building renewable gas facilities, it doesn’t specify what happens if utility companies profit from them.

“It could open up the possibility that the costs would be charged to ratepayers but the revenues from selling renewable natural gas — potentially in the form of these credit attributes traded heavily throughout the U.S. — would go to shareholders. That’s an area of concern I hope policymakers could clarify,” Cullenward said. “That would be a very messed-up situation given how profitable this is now.”