Anaerobic Digestion May Benefit from UK Green Investments Team £80m Investment

The following news has been released about a new development which provides investment funding which may help some in the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas sector in the UK:

Government announces landmark green investment

The Government’s UK Green Investments team (UKGI) is to make its landmark first investment in green infrastructure.

A total of £80 million has been committed to two specialist fund managers who will make and manage investments in the small scale waste infrastructure sector on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

An initial fund of £50 million will be managed by Foresight Group and an initial fund of £30 million managed by Greensphere Capital.

All BIS investments made by the fund managers will be match-funded, leveraging in at least £80 million more to the projects. The investment decisions will be overseen by a new Investment Committee.

The Government is investing directly, on fully commercial terms, ahead of obtaining state aid approval for the UK Green Investment Bank (GIB).

The fund managers will be responsible for generating and managing investments in areas such as waste recycling and reprocessing facilities, pre-treatment projects and energy-from-waste projects.

The appointments have been made following the launch of a competition in December 2011 seeking experienced fund managers to manage Government investments in waste infrastructure projects. The Government will also make a further £100 million available for investment in the non-domestic energy efficiency sector.

More at: UK Government announces landmark green investment .

How to Operate a Biogas Plant - Our Free Diamond Jubilee Gift to All Our Readers

How to Operate a Biogas Plant -- Free eBook

The are a quickly growing number of folks that are organizing a biogas plant for their farm, supermarket chain, food processing plant, market garden etc. You name it, and there are month by month more people that wish to know precisely how to operate a biogas or anaerobic digestion plant.

If you need any proof of this just consider the fact that in the UK alone, the capacity of biogas plants in operation grew by thirty percent in 2011, and we expect similar or higher growth this year (2012).

Even, if they do not yet have a plant to operate, we guess that a large proportion of future biogas plant operators might want to review what type of work, and level of commitment it entails. So, to assist them in choosing whether to go on and start their very own AD plant planning, we wrote this report which you can download by following the link below. Don't worry, it is completely free!

If you are one of the people that need to know how to operate a biogas plant - and you wish to operate a digester which is significantly larger than merely a home biogas digester - then you are in luck!

What you get in this ebook is:

• A complete round-up and description of all the major points a skilled commercial scale biogas plant operator has to know
• The concepts to follow in order to run and preserve a successful anaerobic digestion plant fermentation process
• Risks to stay clear of when operating a Biogas Plant.

The following is a taster for the topics covered, when you download this 21 page ebook:

• The Anaerobic Digestion process de-mystified
• Precisely how methane bacteria help you to run: "The supreme waste disposal system"
• Crucial demands for running an AD plant process reliably for lots of years
• Preparing the feed stock before food digestion and the digestate for sale or utilization afterwards
• Exactly how to establish a Biogas Digester from new
• Essential checking requirements
• The value of never neglecting to keep the digester warm
• Keeping an eye on nutrient requirements
• Hydrogen Sulfide (Sulphide) and Staying clear of AD Plants that "Turn Sour"
• Commonest biogas reactor kinds and the moisture material vs solids balance
• Plus even more!

How to Operate a Biogas Plant - free download:

Click on the button below for your copy and download it now!

If you like what you read, or you just have comments, please come back here and let us have the benefit of your thoughts. We have put a good deal of time into writing and publishing this document, and much of the reward we hope for comes from our subscribers - that's YOU! - getting involved and giving us their feedback. 

I know we often ask this, but please do reciprocate, click on the social networking buttons below to "like" this page, recommend us to Google+ members, and Tweet this page, and let us get to know you better, by commenting. Thank you all - in advance.

USDA Funding for Western Plains Energy Anaerobic Digestion Project

USDA support for Anaerobic Digestion in Oakley Kansas can be seen as a positive move which once again shows that biogas plants are viable and are part of an overal picture in the US in which home production of energy is rising, alongside better fuel efficiency to drastically reduce the drain of wealth and job resources abroad which goes hand-in-hand with the importation of energy from abroad.

Frequently, the fact that biogas plant will provide local jobs has been given less prominence than it should have been, so it is good to read of the number of local jobs that this biogas project will generate. Please read our excerpt from the original article below, and click on the lnk at the bottom for further information:




Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced on April 9 the USDA approval of a $5 million payment to Western Plains Energy LLC to support the construction of a boigas producing anaerobic digester in Oakley, Kan. The completed project will utilize waste energy resources from a local cattle feedlot to replace almost 90 percent of the fossil fuels currently used by Western Plains Energy. The funding of this project is expected to create 15 full-time positions and almost 100 additional construction opportunities.

"For the first time in 13 years, imported oil accounts for less than 50 percent of the oil consumed in America. That is because we are producing more domestically, using more alternative fuels, and using less energy through energy efficiency efforts," said Vilsack. "Projects such as this are a key part of the Obama Administration's all-of-the-above approach to American energy that is supporting the development and usage of renewable energy, revitalizing rural economies and creating an America built to last."

Western Plains Energy expects to complete construction of the biogas digester in August. It is scheduled to become fully operational in 2013. The digester is expected to produce enough biogas to replace 89 percent of the fossil fuel that Western Plains currently uses to provide process heat at its Oakley ethanol plant, which produces 50 million gallons of ethanol annually.

Animal waste from a local feedlot will be the primary feedstock that Western Plains will use for the digester. It also will use grain dust as well as waste from a variety of industrial food and municipal facilities. Western Plains expects to be able to produce more than 100 million Btu of renewable energy per hour daily.

Today's announcement was made under USDA Rural Development's Repowering Assistance Program. This program was authorized under the 2008 Farm Bill. It allows USDA to make payments to eligible biorefineries to encourage the use of renewable biomass as a replacement fuel source for fossil fuels used to provide process heat or power in the operation of these eligible biorefineries. Biorefineries that were in existence when the bill was enacted, June 18, 2008, are eligible to apply. For more information, visit www.rurdev.usda.gov/BCP_RepoweringAssistance.html.

Support for renewable energy projects such as these is an example of the many ways USDA is helping revitalize rural economies. This support for these innovative technologies creates opportunities for growth and prosperity, helps identify new markets for agricultural producers, and better utilizes our nation's natural resources. For more information on USDA energy efforts, click here.

USDA, through its rural development mission area, administers and manages more than 40 housing, business and community infrastructure and facility programs through a national network of employees in the nation's capital and state and local offices. Rural development has an active portfolio of more than $165 billion in affordable loans and loan guarantees. These loans and loan guarantees are designed to improve the economic stability of rural communities, businesses, residents, farmers and ranchers and improve the quality of life in rural America.

View the original article here

Anaerobic Digestion and How to Mix a Porridge Good Enough for Goldilocks and the Three Bears

We recently featured a posting in which Little Miss Muffet made an appearance in a discussion of on-farm AD, so we've been waiting for a chance to better that, no matter how tenuous the link! Hence, our title!

We are often told that the wet anaerobic digestion process, as used for the "standard" type mesophilic biogas digesters so commonly used on-farms and for food waste digestion, must be the consistency of a porridge. Like Goldilocks in the Three Bears nursery tale insisted, it must be just right. Not too hot, not too cold and no doubt also just the right consistency too.

Within an AD Plant the temperature is controlled by hot water heating pipes which are often fixed around the inner side of the perimeter wall, and use hot water from the jacket of the engine, otherwise known as (part of) the CHP output, and that is not hard to achieve. But, getting the consistency right and keeping it right while mixing the reactor completely for a good biogas yield is much trickier.

That's why we were interested to read the following press release from Landia, in the following application at the newly completed  Burdens’ AD plant. We hope that you find it of interest.

Landia’s Pumps Help Bring Healthy Gas Yields to Burdens’ AD Plant

Tough durable pumps from Landia are playing an integral part in the success of Burdens’ innovative anaerobic digestion biogas plant at Llangadog in Carmarthenshire, South Wales.

Designed with additional shredding knives to cut and pull raw waste into the pump at the AD plant’s reception tank, Landia’s 7.5kw MPTK-I Chopper Pump is proving extremely reliable and effective, according to Burdens’ Project Engineer, Arrash Shirani:

“With Landia we have developed a very efficient pre-treatment chopping and blending process.  We are achieving just the right consistency for the mixed feedstock, which results in very healthy gas yields”.

The hydrolysis tank at Llangadog is also served by a Landia pump that sends the blended material to the pasteurization unit.  This MPTK-I 2.2kW Transfer Pump offers high performance but with very low energy consumption.

“Importantly too,” added Shirani, “we have no downtime because both Landia pumps just keep on working, so we save on costs, time and hassle with maintenance, which is also a big benefit”.

Located on the edge of the Brecon Beacons by a Site of Special Interest (SSI), Burdens’ AD biogas plant at Llangadog operates in conjunction with a Carmarthenshire County Council civic amenity site – and also as a demonstration plant to test different types and combinations of feedstock.

The separated hydrolysis system from Burdens is a key part of this new type of plant for capacities of around 10-50 tonnes per week. By combining modular components that can be scaled up as demand increases, it helps manage the risk of large speculative investment. Every part of each sub- assembly is available off the shelf, and can be bolted together to develop increasingly larger systems, suitable for all possible AD requirements from 30 tonnes of waste per week up to 100 tonnes per week.

The process and monitoring systems enable maximum constant yields of biogas to be maintained, delivering increased efficiency – typically up to 30% better than existing methods – also with far less operator supervision required.

Landia, +44(0)1948 661 200, www.LandiaWorld.com

Did we go too far with our Goldilocks and the Three Bears analogy? Did it get you to read this? You have the opportunity to comment! Why not give us your thoughts using the website commenting facility?

Have You Considered Buying EfW Equipment at an Online Auction?

This posting is a little different from usual.

I recently became aware of the following forthcoming auction for the plant illustrated here, and I thought that although originally only intended for subscribers to the www.landfill-gas.com website Newsletter, by also publishing details about it here may help one or two US readers to fulfil forthcoming plant needs.


In fact, given that the cost of equipment bought at auction can be much lower than the equipment’s cost new, and provide a low cost entry point for those who have been seeking to install EfW at a currently flare-only landfill, this may just possibly be your chance to begin to ultilize your biogas and profit from current high (and sometimes also subsidized) feed-in tarrifs available from many electricity power companies.

• So here are the details:
  
  Secured Party Sale ONLINE ONLY AUCTION
  
  
  (3) Complete 2 mW Co-Generation Systems
                   Previously operated at Dean Foods
  
  
  Franklin, MA  ■  Lynn, MA  ■  City of Industry, CA
  
  
  Date: Bidding Closes Tuesday, May 22nd 
  Inspection: By Appointment Only
  
  Each 2 mW Co-Generation System Includes:

• 2001 - GE Jenbacher JGS 616GS NL Natural gas fired 16 cylinder turbo charged skid mounted, water cooled generator
• 2006 - Cain Industries ESG1-824D17.6CSS Natural gas exhaust steam generated water tube boiler
• 2004 - Steuler SCR and catalyst system
• 2006 - Jenbacher PLC generator control centers
• Quincy and Pioneer gas compressors,  as new as 2005
• 2006 - Horiba Enda E-4220L Continuous emissions monitoring system
• All accompanying support equipment, replacement parts and supplies
• And more!

Check out the full details of this online auction at:


http://www.crgauction.com/auctions/dean_foods/details.php


where you will also find details about how to register to participate.

(We recommend that the buyer consults the manufacturers as appropriate for advice on suitability for this plant for use at your landfill. Biogas quality, the presence of impurities, and corrosion are all aspects which need considering when selecting plant for gas utilization.)


About the auctioneer:


Capital Recovery Group is a recognized leader in the appraisal and disposition of industrial and commercial assets.


Capital Recovery Group, LLC
1654 King Street, Suite 9
Enfield, CT 06082
Tel:   860-623-9060
Fax:  860-623-9160


If you want to know more about them you could do worse than spend five minutes on their website, read their testimonials page, and take note of the list of blue chip companies they list as clients.


http://www.crgauction.com/auctions/dean_foods/details.php


We hope that you found this email of interest. At Landfill-Gas.com we are always pleased to receive comments and feedback, and we would be delighted to hear from you if you have any comments about this or any other aspect of our communications.