EAP capstone team publishes journal article on renewable natural gas.
Stepping outside the walls of a classroom and solving a real-world problem — that is what the energy analysis and policy (EAP) program capstone project is about. The annual capstone course exemplifies the Wisconsin Idea, which states that the university strives to impact lives beyond the classroom. As the final requirement of the EAP certificate, students are assigned to small, interdisciplinary teams with a UW–Madison faculty advisor and work for real-world clients.
“[EAP students] bring together all of what they’ve learned when they’re going through the EAP program and put it to work in addressing a real energy analysis and policy problem,” EAP Professor Rob Anex said. In spring 2022, Anex was the faculty advisor for a capstone project team, helping the students frame the problem and providing connections.
The capstone team comprised four graduate studentsspanning campus: Alicia Hoffman (atmospheric sciences), Unni Kurumbail (chemical and biological engineering), Noah Rhodes (electrical engineering), and Jamey Anderson (international public affairs and law).
The capstone teams are interdisciplinary by design so students can step outside their research siloes and be challenged by new perspectives. “As a law and policy student, it was a really enriching experience to be able to work with students from science and engineering departments on the EAP capstone project,” Anderson said.
For this team’s capstone, they were tasked to determine renewable natural gas (RNG) potential in Minnesota by the Minnesota Department of Commerce. They looked at capturing methane from decomposing materials in landfills, swine and dairy manure, and wastewater treatment plants, then converting this waste methane into natural gas — a process known as RNG. With the Minnesota Natural Gas Innovation Act of 2019, projects could start applying for funding to incorporate RNG, but there was a lack of information on how much RNG was available in Minnesota.
Most RNG estimates were on a national level or for other states, and the information in Minnesota pertained to single RNG resources. “This was the first analysis in Minnesota to consider multiple renewable natural gasresources,” Hoffman said.
After a semester of work, the team ran the analysis to determine that 10 percent of natural gas use in Minnesota in 2019 could be replaced by RNG. Besides presenting to the Minnesota Department of Commerce, they presented to the EAP community where they received positive feedback on the quality of their work. Additionally, after reading the written report, faculty advisor Anex said, “It was written well enough that I suggested again, hey, you really ought to submit this.”
Due to busy schedules and one team member graduating, Jamey Anderson, there was no initial preparation for a journal article. Then, almost a year later, Hoffman messaged the team to gauge interest after sitting down during a writing day and pulling together some of the material.
The team discussed and decided to pursue the publication. By having time away from the project, the team came back with a fresh perspective. “When we came back and we talked about it, we all had some new ideas,” Rhodes said.
With new ideas and no end-of-semester deadline, the team set to work. “The report laid the foundation of what we were going to do, but I think we ended up changing quite a bit,” said Hoffman. They cut extraneous information, rearranged the text, discussed the writing process — all pulling from their different backgrounds — and reassessed their methods. The group also iterated a few times with Anex and received helpful feedback from journal reviewers after submitting.
The result was an updated analysis that calculated a slightly lower number (7.5 percent) for RNG potential to replace Minnesota natural gas use in 2019. Mainly, improved estimates from landfills led to the lower percentage. In the paper, they discuss how trucking RNG short distances (virtual pipelines) and fuel credits can improve the profitability of projects as the 7.5 percent refers to the maximum production potential of RNG when no economic or technical barriers were considered.
A lesson learned was on thoroughly reviewing methods. “It makes your paper much better if you go back and really assess the methods you used. If you have any questions or feel unsure of what you’ve done, it is worth it to take it apart and try again because our analysis was so much better after having redone parts of it,” Hoffman said.
On March 7, 2024, the paper was accepted to Biomass and Bioenergy. “Why is it good that they turned it into publication? Because they had really done useful work that people out there ought to know about,” Anex said. As a published article, anyone interested in RNG can learn from the rigorous and applied research of this EAP capstone team.
Rhodes and Hoffman both mentioned that collaborating with team members from different fields strengthened their paper and allowed them to tackle a complex question. “I don’t think any one of us would have individually had the expertise to do this project. It was only possible that all of us came from different programs,” Rhodes said.
To EAP staff’s knowledge, this was the first time a capstone project led to a publication. It serves as a blueprint for future capstone projects, all of which are also researching practical, innovative, and rigorous energy solutions.