The Vintage Dairy Biogas Project, the brainchild of dairyman David Albers, aims to provide the natural gas needed to power 1,200 homes per day. The project began production of natural gas from manure on February 4 to provide renewable energy to the state. The project was funded and built by BioEnergy Solutions, of which Albers is the President. The project has a customer already,
The project controls the production of methane gasses, which is produced as cow manure decomposes. Scientists say controlling methane emissions from animals such as cows would be a major step in addressing climate change. The Vintage Dairy project captures that methane and produces renewable gas from it. First, the Vintage Dairy flushes manure into a large pit. It is then pumped into a covered lagoon, passing through a screen that filters out large solids. The covered lagoon is the size of nearly five football fields and about 33 feet deep. The digester’s cover was sunken into the lagoon on Tuesday, but officials said it would be taut and raised in a few days as the gas collects underneath it. The gas, once treated, is then injected into a PG&E pipeline, where it will be shipped to a power plant in
Both BioEnergy Solutions and PG&E are actively pursuing dairy farmers to use their manure as a form of renewable energy instead of fertilizer. "With nearly 2 million dairy cows in
A second dairy has already agreed to join the project and it is estimated that the two dairies combined, could power 2,500 homes per day. The Vintage Dairy facility could accommodate gas from up to two or three more dairies, depending on the size, officials said.