A New Generation of Farm-Based Anaerobic Digesters

Resource, Sep 2008 by Safferman, Steven, Triponi, Marianne

As a further measure to ensure the success of ADs, BAE engineers provide biogas potentials assays using anaerobic respirometry. They have developed tools to calculate how much methane can be produced from blending waste organic materials and are developing a GIS mapping tool to locate waste biomass in Michigan to help organizations choose the optimal placement of centralized digesters.

A facility like Scenic View Dairy, a Phase 3 Development in Fennville, Mich., demonstrates what the future of ADs can hold for Michigan. This dairy farm, with approximately 2,200 head of cattle, is the first to combine electricity generation with biogas upgrading to pipeline standards, providing a second option for revenue optimization by selling this energy to local power companies (Michigan Department of Agriculture Anaerobic Digester Case Study, Scenic View Dairy, Fennville, Mich., www.michigan.gov/documents/mda/ AD_CaseStudy_221950_7.pdf). Scenic View Dairy has also replaced sand bedding with digested biofibers and utilizes the high-quality methane for on-farm use It is a model of an environmentally safe solution made possible by applying 21st century engineering to an old technology in order to solve complex modern challenges.

ASABE member Steven Safferman is associate professor, Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA; safferma@msu.edu. Marianne Triponi is the communications manager in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, Michigan State University.