Here's the script, but if you watch, it's COOL!!!.....
The price of unleaded gas has topped $2.25 in many parts of the area. With the price of fuel rising, alternate power sources are an important issue. Locally, one company has teamed up with a dairy operator to explore renewable energy sources.
For the past three months, Intrepid Technology from Idaho Falls and Whiteside Dairy in Minidoka County have been researching and developing an anaerobic digester. While the concept of digesters is not new, developers are hoping the magnitude of their results will be.
What looks like waste eventually ends up as natural gas. The concept of digesters isn't new, but Brad Frazee of Intrepid Technology says this one is a little different than others before it.
"We've got a technology we licensed from Utah State University, and it really gives us a much higher heating value, gas, it gives us a higher treatment rate which results in a much smaller facility. That's advantageous to the dairyman - low capital costs and lower operating costs. So we think we got the next generation digester in Idaho."
Each day, the manure from 4,000 cows is collected and placed in a storage pool. From there, the manure is pumped into the digester and held in two 35,000-gallon tanks, where it's heated to around 90 degrees Fahrenheit and bacteria break down the matter. Essentially, it's one big stomach.
"The digester really produces two products. One is the gas we are capturing. The other is a liquid effluent which has a pretty good fertilizer value, it has very little of the original traits of manure - the odor is virtually gone, it's got a consistency more like water than the original manure so it can be used for irrigation very easily."
Currently, the digester treats 15,000 gallons per day at the Whiteside Dairy. Steven Whiteside says the digester provides several advantages to dairymen.
"It helps us manage our nutrients which can be an issue at times. It gives us the ability to export our effluent further, it gives us the ability to reduce our nutrient management plan needs, because we are actually eliminating some of the phosphates, the odor issues and so forth. So there's a lot of advantages to the digester itself."
Frazee says the next step is to add gas cleanup equipment so that the digester can treat 50,000 gallons per day and produce enough gas for commercial sale.
"Ultimately, we expect to be able to put that gas into the pipeline and communities around Idaho will begin using that to heat their homes."
Frazee says they hope to be selling gas in about four to five months. They have another facility in the works that is expected to start operating in a year. That one, he says, will be six times the size of the one at Whiteside Dairy. It is being constructed in Wendell.
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