Anaerobic Digesters May Be Used to Produce Natual Gas

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Gas Industry News (March 2007)

Text Box: ST. CLOUD, Minn. -- Anaerobic digesters on dairy farms are most commonly used to generate electricity but Roseville engineer Cecil Massie suggests a more economic use -- natural gas. Massie, senior process engineer with Sebeka Blomberg and Associates, described the process at a Local Energy/Local Opportunity workshop last week in St. Cloud. He's developed the working model in St. Croix County on Emerald Dairy. The Emerald Dairy digester is located where the manure is producing the natural gas. There is minimal refining, he said. The carbon dioxide is removed and injected into the natural gas pipeline. More digesters can be added to the system, he said. There are 10,000 dairy cows in St. Croix County alone. The digesters can use other materials other than cow manure, Massie said. The systems could use municipal waste or landfill gases. Hog manure can be used, but needs to have a co-product involved such as cornstalks to generate enough gas. Wisconsin is a hotbed of anaerobic digester activity, said Minnesota project energy program associate Amanda Bilek. Wisconsin has 11 existing digesters, five making capacity upgrades and 20 either under construction or in the planning stages. Wisconsin doesn't have the wind capacity for electrical production so producers have turned to digesters for renewable power alternatives. Minnesota has two farms using digesters. Haubenschild Dairy is a 850-head dairy with a plug-flow digester that recently began selling carbon credits to the Chicago Climate Exchange. Northern Plains Dairy, a 3,000 head operation, also sues a plug-flow design. Oregon uses a community digester model collecting manure from several dairy farms and using it to generate electricity. Wayne Hansen agrees with Massie that digesters have a better potential for natural gas production. Hansen, a project specialist with the Agriculture Utilization Research Institute, detailed two Minnesota farms that have looked at digester technology for community use. A feasibility study done by AURI looked at the West River Dairy near Morris, with 5,800 cows. The study looked at connecting its digester to the Morris industrial park. The second operation, located in Kandiyohi, is a 300-cow dairy. Neither dairy has moved forward on the project, but Hansen says a new federal tax credit could be enough incentive to get the projects started.