09/28/07 Expanding Biodigesters

Expanding Biodigesters. I'm Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report. One of the biggest and messiest byproducts of livestock operations is manure. Producers have struggled with the mounting issue for years but with a little foresight and some cooperation, the mess could be a source of energy and revenue. Peter Moulton is the outreach coordinator with Harvesting Clean Energy. MOULTON: Digesters have a lot of important qualities to them including the ability for a dairy operation or anybody that has a CAFO operation to take a current waste disposal hassle and turn it into a valuable resource. Operators are always aware of water and air quality issues around livestock operations. Digesters can help in those areas and according to Moulton, become an additional revenue stream. MOULTON: You've also got the effluent which has now had much of the nutrients taken out of it that produce air quality concerns, you can now go field apply those and in fact it's a preferred effluent. If you've got some excess you may find growers in your neighborhood that would just love to take it off your hands. Some dairies with digesters have actually been able to get additional revenue from using the residual effluent from the digester process. To be honest there are some upfront concerns before jumping into a digester project. One is time and Moulton says this is where another opportunity can come into play. MOULTON: What you are actually seeing more of in a given area combining their resources into a cooperative or an LLC business model and constructing a digester that can handle waste from a variety of farms. Done right, you can actually get enough revenue to contract with a professional for O&M so you have someone who has the time and the knowledge to effectively operate and manage the facility on behalf of a group of dairy operators in a neighborhood. There are a number of biodigester projects being built around the northwest. In addition to the effluent or waste water income, Moulton says there are several other benefits. MOULTON: Either area heating or to net meter my excess energy or electricity back into the grid, it's a way to not only offset the costs but also to deal with these other social or environmental quandaries that are facing dairies that are off in areas that are experiencing residential growth for example. And in some situations it even enables the dairy operator to add additional head because they can take care of the limiting factors in their herd size. For additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.