Bio gas again

[cowman]

Took in the producers group bio gas meeting last night and it was very interesting?
To start it off the project manager had a good blast for the media! They took one small comment and ran with it...namely that the whole thing was a joke and not going to go!
There was a good assortment of people there: Olds College, U of Calgary, PFRA, FCC, Alberta Research Council, Alberta Environment as well as two builders and plenty of producers/investors. Also notable was a coalbed gas company and another group looking at a bio deisel/crushing plant in conjunction with the bio digestor? They are definitely a plus as they would be a market for the waste heat! Seemed to be a very good fit for both plants?
As I said before two small private farmer groups are moving ahead with plans to build and county council gave the project the green light to continue to pursue this project. An application has been forwarded to the Green Municipal Enabling Fund for $16 million...80% grant, 20% loan. The GMEF sent a letter saying they are interested and to continue developing a proposal! AVAC indicated they would continue to provide interun funding!
PFRA was very supportive of this project last night and indicated they are willing to invest. The coalbed company(MGV) indicated they are extremely interested in working on this and might invest! They are lending some technical support to CO2 extraction proposals!
This baby is going to go I am sure of it! As the PFRA guy said "Do we do this now when it is cutting edge and reap the benifit down the road, or do we sit on our hands for the next twenty years and then be forced into it kicking and screaming?"
It was also interesting that one of the companys who build these things has now come up with a single farm use concept that looks very promising!

[Rodjam]

I know of a farmer in the Peace region that is getting into this biodiesel idea on farm. How much of this is going on in your areas everyone?

[cowman]

Rodjam: These guys who are looking into a bio deisel plant talked quite a bit about their problems trying to set this thing up? Their main concern is with a stable price for their product? The USA is so far ahead of Canada on this that they may soon swamp the market for bio deisel blend?
Apparently the USA bio deisel plants have access to government funding through Agstar, a government source of funding for innovative energy projects. The Canadian government has some programs but they are so poor and so top heavy with paper that it is difficult and very lengthy to access funds?
The USA didn't sign Kyoto but are so far ahead of us on environmental issues we'll never catch up! The US government supports innovators and private entrepreneurs while we in Canada have to go through a municipal structure and a maze of beuracracy! Only in Canada you say!!!

[cowman]

Rodjam: You might also find this interesting?
There is a chemical engineer who works at Joffre(petro chemicals) and lives west of the city of Red Deer. He has set up a system where he can turn used cooking oil into bio deisel. He bought a small tank truck(runs on bio deisel!) and collects a lot of the used cooking oil from the fast food joints in Red Deer. The "tipping fees" he charges pay for the operation of the truck and driver.
Not real sure what he has to do to process this oil but it is a fairly simple operation and costs very little. He told me he produces said "deisel" for around 7 cents a liter! Now the good part! He and some of his buddies/co-workers ran 100% of this product in their trucks last summer and are currently running a 30% blend this winter! He thinks with some tweaking he can get the blend up to 50% for winter driving!
He actually told me he could do a better job with 100% canola oil that hadn't been used!

[wmoebis]

Cowman in the last sentence of your first posting did you mean single farm use or single farm production. What was the companies name?

[cowman]

wilagro: The company is Bio-Gem and I think they are located out of Camrose. They actually built the bio digester at the Hutterite colony up in Beaver County. And I guess they now operate it as the Hutterites proved to be totally incompetent!
The rep wasn't long on details but said they were working on a system for single farms...obviously smaller than a Hutterite colony.
Now this is not really groundbreaking stuff? All over the world there are small bio digesters at work. Practically every farm in China has one. The problem has always been what do you do with the gas or power produced? On a single farm the cost of hooking into the grid or scrubbing the gas to be acceptable for a pipeline is unacceptable? But that does not mean you couldn't set up a system for personal use, including both power and heat? The trick is to get it affordable, which can be a problem in our artic climate?
Lots of success stories in the USA for small producers using bio gas for their own use, but then they have a government who helps them develop these things...instead of one who throws up roadblocks wherever it can!
They are doing it in Minnesota and I hear it can be pretty cool there too?
The two farmer groups, that intend to go ahead in RD county, have no intention of spending the kind of money the "show place" is targetted at? Now without a doubt, these won't be mickey mouse, but they will show farmers can be innovative and get the job done cheaper! And I suspect they will also get some more guys thinking "small" and how they can make this work!
Basically your septic tank is a mini-bio digester? Of course it doesn't work all that great because of all the soap and other things going into it that prevent optimum digestion?

[cowman]

The Hutterite Colony is Iron Creek colony. I toured the Biodigester and at that time BioGem was supplying back up services and the actual facility was run by one hutterite that had been trained by BioGem.