The city of Gaylord, Minn., has received a $7,550 grant from the West Central Region Clean Energy Resource Team to study the feasibility for building an anaerobic digester that could be used to convert local and regional organic waste into methane biogas.
Short Elliott Hendrickson Inc., an engineering firm based in St. Paul, Minn., has been contracted to determine the availability of feedstock, as well as regional interest for the digester and biogas. According to Mark Broses, an engineer for the firm, the feasibility study is the very first step in the process of building an anaerobic digester in the community. We're just trying to evaluate if an anaerobic digester project to create biogas for energy makes any sense whatsoever, Broses said. It appears to at first blush, but we're just trying to dig into it a little bit to see if it makes sense to dig into it a lot.
Broses said after he gets a green light from the city, he will contact local and regional industries to determine which companies or private entities might be interested in contributing organic waste to the digester or purchasing biogas from the facility.
[We will determine] the sweet spot for a radius of influence around the community to pull in organic wastes, Broses said. If it does prove feasible to actually create a biogas, (then we will determine) what is the best use for it. Is there an industry that can just use raw biogas for a waste heat source, or would it make sense to do gas cleanup to the point that it could replace dry natural gas either for injection into the pipeline or to replace dry natural gas that is used for local industry? He said they will also consider the potential for using the methane biogas to fuel vehicles for the city.
Article Continues After Advertisement
According to Doug Parrot, a Short Elliott Hendrickson engineer with an office in Gaylord, there are multiple industries in the area that might contribute biomass for the facility, including an egg products plant, a corn and pea-processing facility, as well as large chicken farms.
Broses said that he will also look at the various anaerobic digestion technologies that are available and will explore the amount of carbon credits that might be generated by the facility.
If the feasibility study is approved, Broses said his next step could be to determine which combination of the available feedstocks might be best suited for the digester to produce the biogas.
The West Central Region Clean Energy Resource Team is funded by the Minnesota Department of Commerce, the Blandin Foundation, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the University of Minnesota Institute for Renewable Energy and the Environment, the University of Minnesota Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships, and the U.S. DOE.