FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 2, 2011
American Biogas Council Supports Clean Energy Standard
Legislation will accelerate biogas industry growth at no cost to tax payers
WASHINGTON— Today, the American Biogas Council applauded the introduction of the Clean Energy Standard Act of 2012 (CES). The CES uses a market based approach to encourage a wide variety of electricity-generating technologies including renewable, baseload power from biogas. Biogas is produced from organic waste using a natural process called anaerobic digestion.
Biogas can be used to make renewable electricity and is a renewable substitute for natural gas.
Beginning in 2015, the CES would set a standard for clean energy on the largest utilities. These
utilities would need to sell a percentage of their electricity from clean energy sources, and each
year would need to sell a slightly greater amount of clean energy.
Since biogas, made from waste like food scraps, wastewater and animal manure creates clean
energy, the CES provides a stable, long-term market opportunity for the biogas industry to help
utilities to meet the CES goals. It will create American jobs in the biogas industry, enhance
national security and fuel diversity, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“Today, over 2,200 sites in the U.S. produce renewable biogas from organic waste. And more
than 11,000 future urban and rural sites have been identified to produce biogas,” said Patrick
Serfass, Executive Director of the American Biogas Council. “The Clean Energy Standard
recognizes the biogas industry’s significant role in using local resources to create clean energy
from biogas. We thank Senator Bingaman for his determined leadership on clean energy and
for introducing this bill.”
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About the American Biogas Council
The non-profit American Biogas Council represents over 140 companies dedicated to
maximizing the production and use of biogas from organic waste. Members include anaerobic
digester designers, multi-national engine manufacturers, farmers, waste management
companies, municipalities, natural gas providers, engineering and law firms, non profits,
universities and other organizations covering the entire biogas supply chain.
www.americanbiogascouncil.org
http://americanbiogascouncil.org/pdf/ABC%20Supports%20Clean%20Energy%20Standard-Press%20Release.pdf
For more on the CES:
http://www.energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/democratic-news?ID=67e21415-e501-42c3-a1fb-c0768242a2aa
A horse jockey club in the UK has revealed plans to create a biomass power plant run exclusively on horse manure from the stables.
In an article published from edie.net, GG Eco Solutions have proposed to install the facility at Jockey Club Estates land at Southfield Farm in Newmarket, UK. The plant will convert stable waste into biomass fuel (to heat nearby schools and businesses), as well as to produce fertilizer for use on nearby gallops, studs and farmland.
Totaling 25,000 tonnes of waste per year, the club has been seeking an alternative method of disposal for years.
More:
http://www.canadianbiomassmagazine.ca/content/view/3045/57/
It’s about time these hog farms get some anaerobic digesters in place! Wake up!
Scientists stumped by mysterious methane-packed foam making hog farms explode
By Daily Mail Reporter
Scientists are baffled by an expanding foam that is growing on manure pits and causing entire hog farms to explode.
Six farms have blown up since 2009 – killing thousands of animals – after methane trapped inside the unidentified foam caught a spark.
And there’s no stopping it: the foam has now started growing on one in four farms across the Midwest.
Got this notice in the mail …. Hoping to make it there!
The Anaerobic Digestion Conference and Expo is gathering pace with new delegates registering daily. Just this week, Biocat Solutions, Roeslein Alternative Energy, the City of Chula Vista and Rentech have added their names to the expanding list of attendees. The Anaerobic Digestion Conference and Expo to be held 16-17 May, in San Francisco to meet the challenges of this growing market.
The full event brochure can be found online here, with the agenda, speaker line-up and much more.
This event is purpose built to help you take advantage of the expansion of AD into waste disposal. The central focus is getting waste management and Biogas leaders to use Municipal Solid Waste to build, expand and diversify a profitable Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Business.
Confronting the core challenges of finance, project economics, infrastructure and working with utilities are: Scott Olson of Black & Veatch, Paul Relis of CR&R, Geoff Rathbone of Progressive Waste and Paul Sellew of Harvest Power. They have the operational experience to drive this industry forward.
The free event brochure is ready for you to look at!
http://www.renewable-waste.com/anaerobic-digestion-conference/conference-event-brochure.php?utm_source=2070%3A%2BAmericanBiogas&utm_medium=External%2Bemail%2B&utm_campaign=0703
In Maryland farm animal waste could become a source of electricity for people. A state program called the Clean Bay Power project intends to use animal poop as a fuel for creating methane which is burned to spin turbines that generate electricity. The technology is known as a biogas digester. Maryland’s program requires the new proposed biogas digester plant to be able to generate ten megawatts of electricity. The program will also reduce the amount of chicken litter and farm animal manure entering the Chesapeake Bay. Nitrogen, phosphorous and other nutrients from animal farms get washed into the regional watershed and wind up in the bay where they damage the marine ecology. Oxygen-deprived dead zones in the bay result from excessive amounts of such farm-related chemicals.
“Maryland is leading the nation’s efforts in clean energy and sustainability, and our state’s growing green jobs sector is vital to our ability to create jobs and compete globally in the new economy,” said the state’s governor. (Source: Hometownannapolis.com)
Reducing animal waste entering the bay could also save money because trying to do clean-ups once it is already there is very expensive. The old adage an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure applies in this situation to the tune of about five to ten billion dollars. That is the cost estimate for the state’s proposed program to clean waste from the bay by 2017.
A company called Fibrowatt has indicated an interest in submitting a proposal for a plant. Their design and construction cost is about $300 million. Permitting and construction would require about forty months. This company already has one such facility operating in Minnesota, but it initially showed excessive air pollution from its smokestacks. The problem apparently was fixed, and would actually help improve the design of their next plant it has been reported.
Already about $850,000 has been granted to local farmers for manure-to-power plants by the federal government.
Fort Lauderdale City Commission has granted initial approval to Power Green Energy, a start-up company in Florida, to install an anaerobic digestion system at the city’s waste-water treatment plant.
The plant will generate electricity to feed into Florida Power & Light’s powerlines by mid-2012. The project will generate enough electricity for 1000 homes.
The anaerobic digesters will also upgrade the biosolids remaining to eliminate pathogens, bacteria and viruses.
I hope they are going to use the biosolids for soil enrichment!
For more information:
http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2011/09/27/poop-generated-power/
Google is offsetting its energy footprint by investing in Duke University’s open-source pilot project to generate biomethane from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). The Duke Carbon Offsets Initiative and its partners built an innovative waste management system at Loyd Ray Farms in Yadkin County, outside of Winston-Salem, NC. The system utilizes anaerobic digestion of hog wastes to generate electricity.
The system reduces greenhouse gas emissions, generates electricity, makes for a healthier local environment and benefits farmers and communities economically. Through this pilot, Duke is showing how these projects can make economic sense for North Carolinians and lead to dramatic reductions in emissions over the long term to develop open-source anaerobic digestion systems for hog farms. operations.
More information:
http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/pig-power-google-signs-up.php
Statistics from the American Biogas Council
- Over 150 anaerobic digesters are operating on farms in the U.S. (www.epa.gov/agstar), primarily at dairies and some hog farms. Farm digesters reduce odors associated with manure, as well as pathogens. In addition to generating electricity, heat from gas engines is captured and utilized in farm operations. Many farms also are accepting food waste streams from area generators, which provides a revenue stream and boosts biogas production.
- More than 1,500 municipal wastewater treatment plants have anaerobic digesters to process the solids stream. Increasingly, these treatment plants are capturing the biogas to offset electricity and natural gas use, savings that go directly to the cities’ bottom line. A handful of facilities are being designed in the U.S. to process organics such as food waste and yard trimmings from the municipal solid waste stream. In September, construction of the first facility got underway in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
More:
http://www.americanbiogascouncil.org/biogas_benefits.asp
Here’s an interesting article about building a home-based biogas processor utilizing kitchen wastes to generate energy.
http://www.dae.gov.in/ni/ninov02/biogas.htm
