Appliance Repair in Keyes, CA

The goal of California-based Pacific Gas and Electric Corp. (PG&E) to have renewable natural gas (RNG) make up 15% of its core throughput is gaining steam as the utility has completed an interconnection to the transmission system.

Natural gas and electric utility PG&E Co. and renewable fuels producer Aemetis Inc. recently cut the ribbon for a gas clean up and injection hub in Keyes, CA, capable of delivering RNG to the utility’s natural gas pipeline.

“The Aemetis Biogas Central Dairy Digester consists of a pipeline connecting a central RNG clean up and injection hub to a network of dairy digesters,” Aemetis CFO Todd Waltz told NGI. “To date, we have announced the completion of three of the dairy digesters, along with the completion of 20 miles of pipeline.”

While five additional dairy digesters and another 20 miles of pipeline are expected to be completed by the end of the year, Aemetis is “completing the final tests of the facility that will allow for injection into the Northern California PG&E pipeline for delivery to customers,” Waltz said.

By the end of 2023, PG&E expects to have received about 2.45 Bcf/year, a company spokesperson told NGI.

Production at the Keyes facility is expected to increase through 2026, as Aemetis is planning to build 60-plus dairy digesters, Waltz said. Once fully built out, the digesters could capture more than 1.6 MMBtu/y of dairy cow methane.

The RNG from the Aemetis facility is expected to be directed to PG&E, with compressed natural gas (CNG) customers the potential beneficiaries, according to a utility spokesperson.

By the end of 2023, PG&E projects it could have RNG make up about 3% of its daily system throughput, according to the recent 2022 Climate Strategy Report (CSR). The utility is aiming to have a minimum of 27 Bcf/y of RNG in its system, or 15% of its total gas throughput, by 2030.

According to the CSR, RNG could supply PG&E customers interested in converting vehicle fleets to CNG from diesel.

“Our ability to fuel trucks with negative carbon intensity RNG will contribute to California’s goal of carbon neutrality and will reduce transportation air pollution created by diesel emissions,” said Aemetis CEO Eric McAfee.

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The CSR details PG&E’s plan to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, which includes converting industrial and commercial customers who are unable to electrify from other fuels to natural gas.

The company is also preparing to blend hydrogen into its system by 2030. PG&E has partnered with the Northern California Power Agency, Siemens Energy, the City of Lodi, GHD Inc. and the University of California at Riverside to study levels of hydrogen in an independent natural gas pipeline system.

PG&E serves more than 16 million natural gas and electric customers across Northern and Central California.

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by Angela Swartz and Sue Dremann / Embarcadero Media

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UPDATE: As of 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, Cal Fire reported that the Edgewood fire was 20% contained. Evacuation orders in the area have been downgraded to warnings.

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Areas of Emerald Hills and Woodside are under evacuation orders Tuesday afternoon after two fires broke around 2:30 p.m.

For Emerald Hills' residents, Tuesday took a dramatic turn when a heat wave became a full-on fire evacuation.

Among those forced to leave were Jacqui Bellini-Murray, who just last year moved from San Carlos to Emerald Hills with her husband and teenage son. Bellini-Murray, who works remotely for a biotech company, was on a Zoom call around 3 p.m. Tuesday afternoon when the power suddenly shut off.

"We just thought, 'Oh, it's really hot, no big deal,'" she said. "And then maybe 15 minutes later, my husband … was sitting in the backyard, and he's like, 'There's smoke. It looks like maybe there's a fire.'"

They watched as smoke plumed and planes swooped down, dumping water and fire retardant over the mountains. Not 45 minutes later, an official from the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office knocked on their door and ordered them to evacuate.

"We probably were out of there within ten minutes," she said.

Like many others from the Emerald Hills neighborhood, Bellini-Murray and her family have found themselves staying in a hotel mere minutes away on the other side of Redwood City.

"We're in a hotel and just kind of camping," she said, laughing in disbelief. "Just a little bit ago, I ordered DoorDash, and the front desk is just slammed … It's all evacuees, which sounds so weird, right?"

As of 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, the six-alarm Edgewood Fire, which was in a canyon, had spread to 25 acres in a corner of land between Woodside, Redwood City and Edgewood County Park. It was not contained, fire officials said at a press conference.

The fire was moving in a north to northwest direction toward Cañada Road and areas in south Woodside and toward the town. Air tankers were dropping both water and significant amounts of fire retardant, and would continue until it fell dark, according to Chief Rob Lindner of the Woodside Fire Protection District. Officials said they were aggressively attacking the blaze.

Wind was not a threat but high heat temperatures were expected to hold through the night and would require continued monitoring.

The Sheriff's Office said that evacuations had been completed, but if conditions change to expand the evacuation zone, people would be asked to leave immediately if so ordered. An evacuee center has been set up at the Redwood City Veterans Memorial Senior Center at 1455 Madison Ave.

Abigail Keyes, who currently resides in Washington state, happened to be spending the weekend with her parents at their home in Emerald Hills. The family stepped out Tuesday early afternoon to mail a package at Woodside Plaza, but when they arrived, the UPS store was without power and redirected them elsewhere. That, plus the rising smoke in the distance, tipped them off.

"We came back to an evacuation warning," Keyes said. She called her partner at home, and while they were on the phone, the warning became an order. Soon after, Redwood City Ppolice officers and Ccounty Sheriff's Deputies were on the ground, going door-to-door.

Cañada College is accepting large animals that have been evacuated, Robert Marshall, San Mateo Consolidated Fire's deputy fire chief, said. The Sheriff's Office added that the animals can be brought to the staging area at parking lot 6.

One firefighter who was on the front lines was injured and taken by ambulance to Stanford Hospital. His condition is unknown. No structures have burned and there are no other injuries, Jonathan Cox, deputy chief of Cal Fire's San Mateo County division, said.

Interstate Highway 280 remained open but was experiencing significant smoke and could do so again Tuesday evening. The California Highway Patrol was evaluating whether there will be any traffic diversions. The on- ramps at Edgewood Road and Jefferson Avenue were closed.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, PG&E spokesperson Karly Hernandez said in an email. The PG&E substation on Cañada Road was under threat from the fire and crews were stationed at the site, officials at the press conference said. The fire has caused significant blackouts including parts of Stanford University, Redwood City, Woodside and San Carlos. An outage map is available at pge.com.

An Almanac reporter who was in the Emerald Hills area said she heard a loud explosion followed by a power outage.

The Colton Fire, at Colton Court to the south, was contained shortly before 4 p.m. on Tuesday.

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Areas of Emerald Hills and Woodside are under evacuation orders Tuesday afternoon after two fires broke out after a transformer blew around 2:30 pm. on Tuesday.

A grass fire has reportedly burned 15 to 20 acres, is threatening homes and has the potential to jump Interstate Highway 280, according to fire officials' radio transmissions.

The Woodside Fire Protection District and CAL Fire's local CZU unit are on the scene of the fires. The Edgewood Fire was burning at Edgewood County Park and Nature Preserve in the area of at Edgewood Road and Crestview Drive and the Colton Fire at Colton Court to the south. The Colton Fire was contained shortly before 4 p.m. on Tuesday.

Fire officials recommended the California Highway Patrol shut down southbound 280, Cañada Road and Godetia Drive to traffic around 4 p.m., according to radio traffic.

As of 4:25 p.m. areas under evacuation order included Woodside, east of Cañada Road to Cañada College and Emerald Hills near the Elks Lodge and Golf Course.

Cal Fire Battalion Chief Ethan Peterson took to social media at 4:56 p.m. on Tuesday to give an update on the Edgewood Fire that has been tearing through the Emerald Hills area of San Mateo County and prompting evacuations.

He also said that "numerous" fire resources are on scene including air support and more will be responding.

"It's looking good right now," said Peterson. "If we can hold it at 20 acres, it will be looking good."

San Mateo County Parks announced the closure of Edgewood County Park and Nature Preserve at about 4 p.m. and asked the public to stay out of the area to allow for emergency crews' access.

Power outages are also being reported on the Peninsula, including in the Emerald Hills area. An outage map is at pge.com.

There are currently thousands of people without power along the San Mateo County Peninsula, according to Pacific Gas and Electric.

The outages, as of 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, span from Hillsborough down through the Emerald Lake Hills area that is now battling a 20-acre grass fire.

San Mateo is the hardest hit, with at least 5,000 people without power, according to PG&E. Areas of between 500 and 4,999 customers affected are Hillsborough, San Carlos, and Redwood City.

Check Zonehaven for evacuation details at community.zonehaven.com.

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

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Ahlem Farms Jerseys Now Operational and Connected via Biogas Pipeline to the Aemetis RNG Gas Cleanup Hub

CUPERTINO, CA, June 09, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NewMediaWire -- Aemetis, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMTX), a renewable natural gas and renewable fuels company focused on below zero carbon intensity products, today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Aemetis Biogas LLC, connected its third anaerobic digester via pipeline to the company’s main RNG gas cleanup unit located at the Aemetis Advanced Fuels Keyes facility in Keyes, California. Aemetis remains on track to complete an additional five digesters by the end of Q4 2022, with five more digesters under construction in the same timeframe.

“Connecting our growing network of dairy digesters will accelerate the pace of Greenhouse Gas reduction in California,” said Andy Foster, President of Aemetis Biogas. “Because dairy-based Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) has a negative Carbon Intensity (CI), capturing unmitigated methane from dairies such as Ahlem Jerseys accelerates our ability to provide negative carbon transportation fuel to RNG customers in California to replace diesel in trucks and buses,” added Foster.

The Aemetis Central Dairy Digester project is designed to capture and convey conditioned biogas from more than 60 dairies to the Company’s centralized gas cleanup facility which is operational at the Aemetis Advanced Fuels Keyes ethanol plant. The RNG is either delivered into the PG&E utility pipeline located onsite at the Aemetis ethanol plant, or dispensed to trucks at the RNG fueling station being built at the Aemetis plant, or used as process energy in the Aemetis facility to replace petroleum-based natural gas.

The Ahlem Farms Jerseys dairy digester was funded in part by a $1.4 million grant from the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). The $12 million biogas cleanup facility was funded in part by a $4.2 million grant from the California Energy Commission (CEC).

Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Aemetis is a renewable natural gas, renewable fuel and biochemicals company focused on the acquisition, development and commercialization of innovative technologies that replace petroleum-based products and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Founded in 2006, Aemetis has completed Phase 1 and is expanding a California biogas digester network and pipeline system to convert dairy waste gas into Renewable Natural Gas. Aemetis owns and operates a 65 million gallon per year ethanol production facility in California’s Central Valley near Modesto that supplies about 80 dairies with animal feed. Aemetis also owns and operates a 50 million gallon per year production facility on the East Coast of India producing high quality distilled biodiesel and refined glycerin for customers in India and Europe. Aemetis is developing the Carbon Zero sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and renewable diesel fuel biorefineries in California to utilize distillers corn oil and other renewable oils to produce low carbon intensity renewable jet and diesel fuel using cellulosic hydrogen from waste orchard and forest wood, while pre-extracting cellulosic sugars from the waste wood to be processed into high value cellulosic ethanol at the Keyes plant. Aemetis holds a portfolio of patents and exclusive technology licenses to produce renewable fuels and biochemicals. For additional information about Aemetis, please visit .

CUPERTINO, CA, May 09, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NewMediaWire – Aemetis, Inc. ( AMTX) announced that the company will host a conference call to review the release of its first quarter 2022 earnings report:

Time: 11 am Pacific Standard Time (PST)

Live Participant Dial In (Toll Free): +1-888-506-0062 entry code 841388

Live Participant Dial In (International): +1-973-528-0011 entry code 841388

Webcast URL: https://www.webcaster4.com/Webcast/Page/2211/45517

Attendees may submit questions during the Q&A portion of the conference call.

The webcast will be available on the Company’s website (www.aemetis.com) under Investors/Conference Calls, along with the company presentation, recent announcements and video recordings.

The voice recording will be available through May 19, 2022 by dialing (Toll Free) 877-481-4010 or (International) 919-882-2331 and entering conference ID number 45517. After May 19th, the webcast will be available on the Company’s website (www.aemetis.com) under Investors/Conference Calls.

About Aemetis

Aemetis has a mission to transform renewable energy with below zero carbon intensity transportation fuels. Aemetis has launched the Carbon Zero production process to decarbonize the transportation sector using today’s infrastructure.

Aemetis Carbon Zero products include zero-carbon fuels that can "drop-in" to be used in airplanes, truck, and ship fleets. Aemetis low-carbon fuels have substantially reduced carbon intensity compared to standard petroleum fossil-based fuels across their lifecycle.

Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Aemetis is a renewable natural gas, renewable fuel and biochemicals company focused on the acquisition, development and commercialization of innovative technologies that replace petroleum-based products and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Founded in 2006, Aemetis has completed Phase 1 and is expanding a California biogas digester network and pipeline system to convert dairy waste gas into Renewable Natural Gas. Aemetis owns and operates a 65 million gallon per year ethanol production facility in California’s Central Valley near Modesto that supplies about 80 dairies with animal feed. Aemetis also owns and operates a 50 million gallon per year production facility on the East Coast of India producing high quality distilled biodiesel and refined glycerin for customers in India and Europe. Aemetis is developing the Carbon Zero sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and renewable diesel fuel biorefineries in California to utilize distillers corn oil and other renewable oils to produce low carbon intensity renewable jet and diesel fuel using cellulosic hydrogen from waste orchard and forest wood, while pre-extracting cellulosic sugars from the waste wood to be processed into high value cellulosic ethanol at the Keyes plant. Aemetis holds a portfolio of patents and exclusive technology licenses to produce renewable fuels and biochemicals. For additional information about Aemetis, please visit www.www.aemetis.com.

External Investor RelationsContact:Kirin SmithPCG Advisory Group(646) 863-6519ksmith@pcgadvisory.com

Investor Relations/Media Contact:Todd Waltz(408) 213-0940investors@aemetis.com

Two years ago at the California African American Museum in downtown Los Angeles, three titans of East Coast rap converged for a roundtable: influential “Paid in Full” rapper Rakim; Public Enemy’s cofounder Chuck D; and indie rap royalty Talib Kweli.

Called “Sweat the Technique: The Politics and Poetics of Hip-Hop,” the event attracted a standing-room-only crowd in South Los Angeles. Little did they know that the roundtable — which was supposed to be the first in a months-long L.A. Phil series called Power to the People! — would lay the groundwork for UCLA’s just-announced Hip Hop Initiative, or that Chuck D would serve as its inaugural artist in residence.

“The room was sweating. It was on fire,” recalls says H. Samy Alim, UCLA professor of anthropology and director of the university’s new initiative. He said the event set the template for “what we can do when we all come together to showcase hip-hop’s power and strength.”

Touting itself as “the leading center for Hip Hop Studies globally,” the initiative aims to amplify and multiply the conversation on hip-hop culture across artistic disciplines “by way of artist residencies, community engagement programs, a book series, lecture series, an oral history and digital archive project, postdoctoral fellowships and more,” according to the initiative’s announcement.

The initiative will expand the Hip Hop Studies Series of books published by University of California Press and edited by Alim and Jeff Chang, best known for his essential book on rap, “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation.” It will also build on the university’s decades-in-the-making archive, accelerating the researching and documentation of hip-hop in the Los Angeles area.

UCLA has long forged paths in the scholarship of American music. Alumni of its famed school of music include Kamasi Washington, Randy Newman, Carol Burnett, John Fahey and La Monte Young, and its faculty has included Herbie Hancock, Kenny Burrell, Patrice Rushen and the late Barbara Morrison, among many others.

Alim describes the 2020 “Sweat the Technique” roundtable — produced by the Los Angeles Philharmonic with support from the California African American Museum and UCLA’s Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies — as indicative of the Hip Hop Initiative’s mission.

Noting that it’s been a half-century since Bronx disc jockey Kool Herc planted the seeds of hip-hop, Alim asks, “If we’re 50 years in, how are people going to understand culture 50 years, 100 years from now? We have to institutionalize the kind of study and rigorous analysis of the culture so the story gets told.”

Tyree Boyd-Pates, the curator and historian who moderated the discussion among Rakim, Chuck D and Kweli, hopes that the initiative will draw new generations of experts who are “actually diving into the inner workings of the techniques of hip-hop and looking at it through a lens of scholarship.”

The initiative is part of UCLA’s Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, which has long been a leader in rap studies through the work of scholars including Cheryl L. Keyes, Shana Redmond, Bryonn Bain and Robin Kelley (along with Kyle Mays, Adam Bradley and other UCLA professors across all fields of study). “Hip-hop studies has exploded as an area of inquiry,” Alim says. In addition to Alim, the initiative will be steered Bunche assistant director Tabia Shawel and Samuel Lamontagne, Ph.D. candidate in ethnomusicology. Kelly Lytle Hernandez, pictured above, is the director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center.

During a recent call to discuss his forthcoming artist-in-residency, Chuck D said, “All the other musics out there have been understood, interpreted, rolled out, books made about it. So this newest art form of the last 50 years, hip-hop and rap music, is reaching this point where you hear directly from from the sources — the inspiration, the impact and connectivity between the creators and the audiences.”

Keyes, chair of UCLA’s Department of African American Studies, was a student at University of Indiana in the early 1980s. At the time, academia barely acknowledged hip-hop’s existence, focusing instead on blues, rock ‘n’ roll and folk music scholarship. Spotting an opportunity and obsessed with the emergent culture, the grad student knew she was onto something, from a scholarly perspective.

“My professors would say, ‘Why don’t you study jazz or gospel music?’” Keyes said. “But persistence is one of the things that I learned from and respect about hip-hop culture. After 20-plus years, we’re beginning to see hip-hop center stage as a legitimate area of interdisciplinary study here at UCLA.”

“When you look at hip-hop’s commodification, you have this dominance in the public sphere,” Alim says. “And not just with record sales and charts, but now you have hip-hop in the Super Bowl halftime show. You have breakdancing as a category in the 2024 Olympics. Everything from the music to dance is entering new levels of mainstream dominance. Intellectually — and also historically and politically — we’re in this new moment.”