The latest Power Onward podcast has dropped. “From Trash to Torque”. Kim’s back – and she’s with Dave, two corporate mannequins with headsets, chatting about turning landfill gas and cow shit into “clean fuel”. It’s a sweet bedtime story for shareholders. A fairy tale told over the hum of diesel.
Carbon-Negative on Paper
The headline claim is that RNG – renewable natural gas – can go “below zero”. In practice that means cooking the carbon books until manure looks like a miracle. The podcast peddles credit schemes and theoretical offsets while ignoring the leaks, flares and fugitive emissions that undo it all. Carbon-negative only works if you ignore physics and count PR as a gas capture method.
The Dairy Delusion
“Dairy farms are key players”. Of course they are. Nothing says sustainability like doubling down on industrial livestock for methane profit. When manure becomes money, pollution becomes product. The more cows you pack into the sheds, the greener you look on paper. It’s circular, alright – the kind of circle that goes straight down the drain.
Landfill Alchemy
Dave calls RNG “turning trash into transportation”. In reality, it’s plumbing with marketing. Landfill gas was already being flared or used on-site. Now it’s piped, sold, rebadged, and burned again – a carbon boomerang with a brand manager. Nothing new here except the adjectives.
The Scale Scam
RNG supply can’t scratch the surface of diesel demand. You can’t run global logistics on banana skins and cow farts. Yet the podcast spins it as a “long bridge” – code for kicking the can until regulators lose interest. It’s not a bridge. It’s a cul-de-sac with nice signage.
The Diesel That Isn’t
The X15N “drives like diesel”, says Dave, which is the problem in miniature. The goal was cleaner air, not identical throttle response. RNG engines still spit NOx, still breathe the same infrastructure leaks. “Quieter and no smell” is a perfume ad, not a climate plan.
Credit Over Chemistry
Every miracle stat in this show hangs off carbon credits and optimism. Methane capture figures, carbon-intensity scores, paper-negative maths – all built on systems that collapse the moment someone opens a valve. The only thing truly renewable here is the storytelling.
Cummins’ Favourite Fuel
RNG is perfect for Cummins: it looks radical, burns familiar. It lets the company sell engines under a green halo without touching the real transition. “Cleaner, cheaper, carbon-negative” – the trinity of every bridge fuel that ever stalled progress.
The Punchline
Cleaner transport doesn’t mean starting over, they conclude. Exactly. It means never starting at all. From trash to torque? More like from manure to marketing.
Another Power Onward episode no one listens to – except the cows, still waiting for their royalties.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project
Source: From trash to torque – Cummins