News Articles

October 01, 2020

Making inroads in biogas

In 2016, Calgren and its digester developer, Maas Energy Works, first approached dairies with the idea of using their manure to create biogas transportation fuel. The company’s proposal was to build a covered lagoon digester on each dairy (or, occasionally, a pair of dairies) to collect biogas and transport it to Calgren’s renewable fuel complex via a private, low-pressure pipe.

August 27, 2019

Maas Energy Works is helping Redding, CA thrive

A new report lists Redding as one of the leaders in tech and STEM employment for the entire nation. Some of Redding's big players in the areas of tech and STEM include: Sierra Pacific Industries, that has created a world class engineering shop; Ted Pella, who sells microscopy equipment all over the world; and Maas Energy, the leading methane gas collection company for all of California.

August 01, 2019

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Calgren Dairy Fuels completed a dairy renewable natural gas facility in California – the first of its kind in the state.

July 31, 2019

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Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas)  joined Calgren Dairy Fuels, and state and local elected officials to announce the completion of Calgren’s dairy renewable natural gas injection facility. 

July 30, 2019

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Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) joined Calgren Dairy Fuels, and state and local elected officials yesterday to announce the completion of Calgren’s dairy renewable natural gas injection facility. The project, located in the Central Valley community of Pixley, is the first of its kind in California and is expected to be the largest dairy biogas operation in the U.S. later this year.

July 29, 2019

Southern California Gas (SoCalGas) joined Calgren Dairy Fuels to help clean up the reputation of cows as they, along with local and state officials, celebrated the completion of Calgren’s dairy renewable gas injection facility.

May 29, 2019

Joey Airoso last year hooked his dairy into a huge California renewable energy project, a network of farms that turns the gas leaking off manure from 35,000 cows into a bio-fuel.

April 01, 2019

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Maas Energy Works (MEW), based in Redding is leading clusters of dairies in Merced and Denair in installation of “Dairy Digester” systems. The purpose is converting manure to renewable natural gas that will be injected into utility pipelines. These projects are a collective investment exceeding $100 million.

March 21, 2019

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A great article that we were able to contribute to regarding the challenges and opportunities of the dairy digester industry!

March 01, 2019

ABC 30 Action News

Joey Airoso's dairy was the first to start delivering methane gas to Calgren Renewable Fuels last August. He has nearly 3,000 dairy cows at his Pixley farm. All of them produce waste, and the storage of manure contributes to methane emissions. But now, a device called a digester captures the potent greenhouse gas, and the pipeline delivers it to Calgren, about three miles away from his farm. 

February 27, 2019

The Sun Gazette

PIXLEY – Once thought of as major polluters, Central Valley dairies are now converting the gases released from tons of cow manure into one of the most cost effective and renewable energies, natural gas. And earlier this month, a Tulare County facility became the first ever to pump renewable natural gas from dairies directly into a state utility’s pipeline.

February 19, 2019

Biomass Magazine

Calgren Dairy Fuels, a project where Maas Energy has served as lead Developer, begins injecting RNG into the SoCalGas Utility Pipeline. This is a huge milestone for Maas Energy Works and Calgen Dairy Fuels. It is now the first project in California to be delivering California Dairy Biogas into the Utility Pipeline! 

It has been a extensive process and a pioneering journey and we are all very excited!

October 01, 2018

ABC 30 Action News

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) --

Dairy Operators face state requirements to do their part to clean the air and one program with incentives calls for capturing the natural gas in a big holding pond. 

June 25, 2018

California Dairy Digester Project Recognized as Groundbreaker of the Year

A dairy digester project based in the Pixley area was recognized by BBI International and Biomass Magazine at the 11th annual International Biomass Conference and Expo in Atlanta, Georgia.   Calgren Dairy Fuels was presented with the Groundbreaker of the Year Award for the 14-dairy farm digester-to-renewable natural gas project the company is currently developing.

March 19, 2018

Calgren Dairy Fuels Cluster Project

Maas Energy Works is privileged to work as the lead Developer on the Carlgren Dairy Fuels pipeline project and we are so excited to see what the coming years have in store for this industry. 

"Calgren Dairy Fuels is becoming known as a world leader in biogas production and utilization, with good reason. Of the 18 dairy digester projects that were recently awarded more than $35 million in funding by the California Department of Food and Agriculture, seven of them involve Calrgen. 'California dairies are under pressure to minimize the release of methane from manure,' notes Lyle Schlyer, president of Calgren Renewable Fuels, parent company to Calgren Dairy Fuels. 'This project, called the Calgren Dairy Fuels Cluster, will help address that issue.'" -  Hein, Treena "California's Pipeline Power Project "  Manure Manager. March/April 2018. Manuremanager.com 19, Mar. 2018.

December 30, 2017

Calgren Dairy Fuels Cluster Project

Somewhere within a 10-mile radius of the Calgren Renewable Fuels facility near Pixley, California, a crew is busy excavating dirt—perhaps along the edge of a field, or across the road of a dairy farm—laying pipeline at a minimum depth of four feet, carefully and methodically forging its way to the ethanol plant. Eventually, around 20 miles of pipeline will connect 10 anaerobic digesters installed at 11 local dairy farms, serving as the gateway for biogas that will be upgraded and used for process energy and more. 

December 22, 2017

Hanford Sentinel

Covering around 35 miles, the new Lakeside Pipeline project would connect as many as 18 Kings County dairies (a cluster of eight to begin with) to a buried biogas pipeline and the SoCal Gas distribution system in an effort to cut methane emissions.

Developing the pioneering project is Daryl Maas of Mass Energy Works of Redding. He is also working with the Pixley biogas cluster of dairies, connecting eight to 10 of them. 

November 01, 2017

ABC30 Action News

Maas Energy Works and Calgren say their project is the first of its kind in California. It is called a pipeline dairy digester cluster.

Work is already underway on the pipeline, which will eventually connect 11 dairies in the Pixley area...

August 14, 2017

TriplePundit

Last Friday, several dozen farmers, government officials, dairy industry representatives and clean energy professionals met at Philip Verwey Farms in rural Madera County, 160 miles southeast of San Francisco. They congregated near where 5,600 dairy cows contribute to the region’s growing dairy industry – as well as the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

April 21, 2017

Your Central Valley.com

Philip Verwey Farms can now power its own operation using - recycled cow waste!

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The dairy now has an anaerobic manure digester, it's a "facility that processes manure from a dairy farm and it extracts methane gas," Maas Energy Works CEO Daryl Maas said. "Methane gas is a greenhouse gas, it heats up the environment and it's also a fuel."

April 18, 2017

CDFA

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross speaking today at the unveiling of a new dairy digester at Philip Verwey Farms in Hanford. CDFA’s Dairy Digester Research and Development Program contributed $3 million for the project, which will provide an estimated greenhouse gas reduction of 53,577 metric tons of CO2e per year – that’s equivalent to 11,317 passenger vehicles.

March 01, 2017

Manure Manager Mag

For Eric TeVelde, owner of Open Sky Ranch Dairy near Riverdale, Calif., the business case to purchase a deeply discounted, mothballed, but structurally sound anaerobic digester on his newly-acquired farm was just too good to...

January 27, 2017

BIOMASS Magazine - Page 14

A considerable force behind a new wave of interest and development can be attributed to California state grants that have and will continue to fund tens of millions of dollars worth of digester projects, policy and initiatives to improve state air quality, and, at least in part, to brothers Daryl and Kevin Maas, who own companies Farm Power Northwest and Maas Energy Works...

November 17, 2016

ABC 30 Action News

Thanks to an expensive piece of machinery, dairyman Eric Tevelde is now running his entire operation on recycled cow waste.

"We'd probably be paying between $50,000 and $70,000 a month. It covers all the electricity for both the dairy and our farming side of it so it's significant."

November 17, 2016

AG Net West

CDFA Undersecretary Jim Houston joined the celebration in Fresno County for the dedication of a new dairy digester at Open Sky Ranch – the first digester in CDFA’s Dairy Digester Research and Development Program.

November 17, 2016

The Fresno Bee

A dairy in west Fresno County that converts manure into electricity is the first to become operational under a state program aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

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State and federal officials were at Open Sky Ranch in Riverdale on Thursday to introduce the dairy digester project that was funded under a California Department of Food and Agriculture research and development program.

November 11, 2016

Biomass Magazine

A California dairy and its digester developer are hosting an open house on Nov. 17 to allow visitors to learn about and view the project firsthand.

Maas Energy Works is the developer and operator of...

October 11, 2016

Valley Public Radio

When it comes to how Governor Brown has influenced the dairy industry, Joey Airoso doesn’t mince words. “He's making it difficult for anybody to produce anything in this state,” says Airoso, a dairy producer in...

September 17, 2016

Sacramento Bee

The rumbling of a tank-sized generator on the grounds of the Van Warmerdam Dairy is a sound of relief for the longtime farming family.

It’s a signal that the...

May 19, 2016

Capital Public Radio

Forty-five percent of California’s methane emissions come from dairies, the largest source of the potent greenhouse gas in the state. The 700 cows on Case Van Steyn’s dairy farm in Elk Grove excrete about 98,000 pounds of manure and urine every day. All that waste produces methane.

May 18, 2016

Sacramento Business Journal

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District will unveil its newest cow-powered alternative power plant Thursday at a dairy south of Elk Grove.

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Powered by cow waste, the anaerobic digester will generate up to 225 kilowatts of electricity...

March 07, 2016

Climate Action Reserve

The Climate Trust’s Van Warmerdam project is an anaerobic digester in Sacramento County, California. Maas Energy Works—a company specializing in turning methane gas generated by cow manure into electricity—constructed the digester on-site at the Van Warmerdam Dairy.

This facility that milks 1,000 cows...

February 22, 2016

Enjoy Magazine

What do electricity and cow manure have in common?  That isn't a lead-in question for the latest joke.  There actually is a relationship of significant worth that few people are aware of.

A three-generation Redding family is building a future...

July 13, 2015

California Dept of Food and Agriculture

The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) has selected five projects for approximately $11.1 million in grants to implement digester technology on California dairy operations that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) from dairy manure...

April 24, 2015

Scientific American

California's cap-and-trade system spurs farmers to install biogas digesters

April 01, 2013

SAFE-BIDCO

Over the millennia, cows have provided the basis for humankind to enjoy delicate cheeses, fancy shoes, prime cut steaks, and the design inspiration behind those whimsical country lane mailboxes. Now, in partnership with rural dairy farmers...