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BioCycle July 2016, Vol. 57, No. 6, p. 14
Washington, D.C.: DC Water Introduces Digestate Product
Bloom™, a new soil amendment product made with biosolids digestate, is being test marketed in the Washington, DC area. DC Water unveiled the product and its new brand in mid-May, announcing a pilot program for distribution with local soil blenders and landscapers. DC Water’s wastewater treatment plant underwent a multiyear upgrade to install thermal hydrolysis and anaerobic digester facilities that were commissioned last year. The thermal hydrolysis process creates an exceptional quality Class A biosolids product.
The Bloom™ pilot program is designed to provide local partners with digestate for blending or landscaping in exchange for information on how they optimize their production with the product. One goal of the program is to test different soil blends; the partners will provide DC Water with periodic samples and feedback on their experience with the product. This information will assist DC Water in bringing more products to market as early as next year. Luck Ecosystems, a Virginia soil blender, is one of the pilot program participants.
Washington, DC: Agriculture Environmental Stewardship Act Introduced
Representatives Tom Reed (R-NY) and Ron Kind (D-WI) introduced new bipartisan legislation in mid-June, the Agriculture Environmental Stewardship Act (HR 5489), with the support of 12 additional Republican and Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives. The American Biogas Council, the trade association for the U.S. biogas industry, supports the bill, which will increase the sustainability of farms by helping to deploy new nutrient recovery and biogas systems to recycle organic material into baseload renewable energy and healthy soil products. The Act provides a 30 percent investment tax credit (ITC) for qualifying biogas and nutrient recovery systems. “The Agriculture Environmental Stewardship Act will make these systems possible,” noted Patrick Serfass, Executive Director of the American Biogas Council.
The introduction of HR. 5489 reflects the critical need to support economically and environmentally sustainable agricultural practices that protect waterways and enrich soils, adds Serfass. Currently no tax incentive exists for nutrient recovery systems, which farms increasingly need to properly manage the nutrients found in raw manure. Currently, only biogas projects that generate electricity are eligible for a production tax credit under Section 45 of the federal tax code, omitting other energy uses like production of pipeline quality natural gas and compressed renewable natural gas vehicle fuel. “This measure recognizes the value that biogas systems can have as dairy producers continue improving the sustainability of their farms, large and small, across the country,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation. “Importantly, the creation of this new investment tax credit also addresses the value of nutrient recovery technologies, which can transform manure into fertilizer for crops and bedding for cows. This bill will help dairy farmers to utilize these new, often expensive technologies on their dairies.”
Trieze-Cantons, Switzerland: Coffee Power
Nestlé Waters & Groupe E GreenWatt inaugurated the largest agricultural biogas plant in Switzerland in June. The facility is located in the Treize-Cantons industrial park, next to the Nestlé Henniez bottling plant. Financed, built and operated by Groupe E Greenwatt, the facility is designed to digest 25,000 tons/year of agricultural residuals from 27 farms in the region, and 3,800 tons of organic waste from the processes that produce Nespresso and Nescafé. The plant will produce 4 million kWh of electricity and 4.5 million kWh of heat using a combined heat and power engine. The heat will be consumed in the adjacent Nestlé Waters bottling plant, where the proportion of renewable energy used in the operation will exceed 50 percent — avoiding 1,750 tons of CO2 emissions annually. Digestate will be used as a soil conditioner by partner farms.
Maidencreek Township, Pennsylvania: Grocery Chain Creates Slurry For Digester
Redner’s Warehouse Markets, a 44-store grocery chain based in Maidencreek Township, installed Grind-2-Energy industrial-scale food scraps grinders at its stores in Hamburg and Leesport, Pennsylvania in early 2016. Nonedible produce and trimmings, meat waste and other scraps are processed in the unit, which adds water to create a slurry that is piped to an outdoor, insulated tank. Redner’s and Grind-2-Energy work with Kline’s Service Inc. to empty the tanks at each store and transport the high-strength liquid to the Derry Township Municipal Authority’s wastewater treatment plant anaerobic digester in Derry Township near Hershey. Combined with recycling, the system enables the stores to divert 3.5 tons/week from landfill disposal and significantly reduce the frequency of trash compactor pulls, according to an article in the Reading Eagle. Grind2Energy monitors the slurry tank, and notifies Kline’s Service when it is ready to be emptied.
USDA National Institute of Food (with the University of Buffalo, the University of Maryland, Cornell University and the University of Michigan and Agriculture) study will evaluate how well three different waste processing techniques — anaerobic digestion, composting and long-term storage — remove drugs and germs in excrement. Anaerobic digestion reactors designed and built by Stephanie Lansing of the University of Maryland above.
Buffalo, New York: Manure Management Practices And Antibiotic Resistance
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture is funding a $1 million study with the University of Buffalo, the University of Maryland, Cornell University and the University of Michigan, to evaluate how well three different waste processing techniques — anaerobic digestion, composting and long-term storage — remove drugs and germs in excrement. The researchers will collect manure samples from six dairy farms in New York State, three in Maryland and two in Pennsylvania. Samples will be gathered before and after treatment, and tested for levels of antibiotics, antibiotic-resistant bacteria and resistance genes.
Besides examining manure that has undergone processing on farms, the team will spike manure with antibiotics and resistance genes in controlled experiments that use anaerobic bioreactors in the lab at the University of Michigan, as well as larger scale anaerobic digestion reactors designed and built by Stephanie Lansing of the University of Maryland (in photo). While dairy farm manure is only rarely used to fertilize crops for human consumption, the team also will grow three food crops to see whether the plants take up antibiotics and resistance genes from treated and untreated manure: potatoes (grown below ground), lettuce (grown above ground and eaten fresh) and corn (grown above ground and eaten cooked).
The T6.140 Methane Power tractor, developed by New Holland Agriculture
Cambridgeshire, England: Tractor Runs On Biomethane
Farmers in the UK had an opportunity to test drive a new prototype tractor fueled on biomethane produced by digestion of manure from 1,000 dairy cows. The T6.140 Methane Power tractor, developed by New Holland Agriculture, is equipped with a 4 cylinder, 3 liter engine that has a maximum power of 135 hp and about 460 foot-pounds of torque. The 18-gallon capacity compressed methane tank delivers about a half-day of tractor operation; an auxiliary 4-gallon fuel tank is available as a backup. The methane propulsion technology results in 80 percent lower emissions than a standard diesel engine. The tractor’s three-way catalyst ensures Tier 4B exhaust emissions compliance without the need for additional after-treatment systems.
Ballymena, Northern Ireland: Chicken Litter-Fueled AD Plant
Construction of a $33.8 million, 3 MW anaerobic digestion facility is underway near the town of Ballymena in Northern Ireland, reports project developer Stream BioEnergy. Once fully operational in early 2018, it will have capacity to process up to 44,000 tons/year of chicken litter, using an ammonia-stripping technology to enhance the digestibility of the high nitrogen poultry manure. Stream BioEnergy and Xergi claim the new stripping process is the first to enable biogas plants to use only chicken litter as feedstock. Typically, chicken litter can usually only be used in small quantities along with other feedstocks to produce biogas. The project is being backed by a $12.8 million investment from Foresight Group’s Recycling and Waste LP Fund, which counts the Green Investment Bank (GIB) as a cornerstone investor.
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