Creating Renewable Natural Gas Using Anaerobic Digestion

• Manures and food processing wastes plus silage crops can produce energy plus other commercial by-products.
• Anaerobic digestion has been around over 2000 years to handle human waste in China and India. The result was methane for cooking and heating and at the same time managing waste. Germany has over 3400 operating biogas plants.
• The wet fermentation of manure and food processing wastes can yield over 9 different commercial by-products. At present there are five biogas plants operating in rural Alberta. Biogas plants are also attached to sewage treatment plants in the cities of Alberta.
• Silaged crops going through dry fermentation biogas plants can also produce energy and saleable by-products.
• Biogas plants capture two of the six greenhouse gases. These are carbon dioxide and methane.
• Biogas plants like hydro dams can hold their production and can deliver energy needed during peak demand hours.

• Now and in to the future using waste to produce energy and other by-products, can reduce the impact of waste on our environment.

• Alberta Agriculture and Food’s “Roping the Web
• Climate Change Central website - type in “biogas conference” in the search engine on their site

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