Sweeney and Addiego Visit the Rutgers EcoComplex

Trenton – Senate President Steve Sweeney joined Senator Dawn Marie Addiego in visiting the Rutgers EcoComplex today, one of the leading environmental and energy centers in the country. The Rutgers EcoComplex focuses its research on how to capture and re-use gas emitted by organic matter, such as food waste in landfills.

“Looking to alternative energy sources is a top priority for New Jersey as we strive to transition our state to zero emissions by 2050. The work taking place at the Rutgers EcoComplex has provided us with valuable research and development in order to utilize biomass as a reliable source of energy for the state,” said Senator Sweeney (D-Gloucester/Salem/Cumberland). “Institutionalizing the ability to harness energy from our waste would not only move us towards a healthier environment, but it would create economic development and jobs throughout the state as well.”

The Rutgers EcoComplex is a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary environmental center that harnesses research and education resources towards the development, and industrial application of innovative environmental/agricultural technologies.

“The research taking place at the Rutgers EcoComplex is the future of renewable energy and a clean environment,” Senator Addiego (D-Atlantic/Burlington/Camden). “Technology has reached the point that allows us to look towards developing bio-based energy as a legitimate renewable energy industry in the state. We must take advantage of this valuable information to improve New Jersey environmentally and economically.”

In September 2006, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities commissioned the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES) to conduct an assessment of New Jersey’s biomass and the potential for bioenergy production in the state. The Rutgers EcoComplex updated the report in July 2015 and has released version 2.0 that reflects the ongoing changes in biomass feedstock supply as well as the technologies used to produce bioenergy.