Powering the farm
In rural Hamilton a veal farm puts out $2 million to convert waste to methane and produce electricity.
February 13, 2010ERIC MCGUINNESSTHE HAMILTON SPECTATORFLAMBOROUGH (Feb 13, 2010)
Manure from 3,000 veal calves on a Valens-area farm will start producing enough power to supply 500 homes next month.
Industry officials say Delft Blue Veal will be one of only a half-dozen Ontario farms -- and the first in this area -- with an on-site biogas plant turning manure into electricity for sale to the provincial grid.
Farm manager Piet Zeeman likes the idea of raising calves for food, "while you can make hydro with what comes out of the back end."
Delft Blue, a division of the Grober Group of Cambridge, is building a huge, circular digester tank that will create methane gas to run an engine generating almost 500 kilowatt hours of electricity. The system will also heat the digester and replace propane now used to heat barns and liquid animal feed.
The addition of fat, oil, grease and other liquid food waste from off-farm sources will provide a high-octane boost, maximizing output of green energy while solving a disposal problem.
Nicole Foss, executive co-ordinator of the Agri-Energy Producers' Association of Ontario, says the biogas process cuts greenhouse gas emissions, removes manure odour, kills most pathogens and prevents Walkerton-like contamination of drinking water. Plant nutrients in the manure -- phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium -- are preserved in the leftover liquid, or digestate, used as an organic fertilizer.
John Giles, Delft Blue bioenergy project manager, who says he first explored anaerobic digestion in Germany a decade ago, is excited about the prospect of producing power by mid-March.
"You're not losing your nutrients, but you're picking up all this carbon in the form of methane."
The Grober Group processes veal in a federally inspected Cambridge plant for sale to grocers and the food-service industry. It also produces milk-based animal feed and components such as whey protein used in fitness drinks.
The Flamborough farm now has an aerobic digester, one that uses electricity to pump in air to support bacteria that do nothing but remove odour.
In an airless, anaerobic digester, microbes feeding on the waste release methane in a process similar to that in Hamilton's Woodward Avenue sewage treatment plant, which burns biogas from its sludge digesters to generate electricity.
Foss, whose organization receives provincial aid to encourage biogas production, says: "Anaerobic digestion allows you to reclaim energy and nutrients the way natural systems do. If we promoted it, we could create a huge number of jobs building and servicing biodigesters. Germany built 4,000 plants in 10 years, employing tens of thousands."
Considering the German experience, it's not surprising that PlanET Biogas Solutions Inc. of St. Catharines, which is installing the Delft Blue system, uses technology from a German partner.
Application manager Matt Lensink says PlanET built digesters for two Niagara greenhouse flower growers in the past two years. They heat the greenhouses and produce power, but unlike Delft Blue rely entirely on off-farm waste, including grape pomace -- skins and seeds left over from making wine -- and waste from a Toronto dog food factory.
Noting that Ontario's new Green Energy Act offers premium prices for on-farm biogas power, Lensink says: "The next step is to make people aware of it. Our hope is that it will go, but I don't know if it will ever be as big here as in Germany, where (power) rates are almost double."
Foss says current prices are only high enough if the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs continues to offer construction grants.Ross Blaine, Delft Blue director of innovation, says OMAFRA offers a 40 per cent subsidy up to a maximum of $400,000 -- or about 20 per cent for the Flamborough facility in which close to $2 million has been invested.
In keeping with his innovation role, Blaine hopes to do more than generate power. Among other things, he wants to try what he calls nutri-gation, adding digestate to golf-course irrigation systems in place of chemical fertilizer.
Posted on February 19th