Biogas from Garbage - European Technology in Canada
Here is an interesting article in regards to Biogas. That is producing fuel from garbage. There are many sources for this and this once happens to come from municipal garbage collection. Energy group proposes turning municipal waste into methane gas
Gordon Jaremko
The Edmonton Journal
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
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EDMONTON - A fledgling Edmonton firm revealed plans Monday to fire up an alternative energy project using municipal waste to produce methane.
“The biological fuels industry is going to take off,” Scott MacKay, founder of Sustainable Energy Group Inc., confidently predicts. “We have several projects we’re looking at.”
The group — Edmonton construction firm Clark Builders, Swiss technology developer Kompogas and MacKay’s Enermac Consultants Inc. — is in talks to tap municipal waste disposal systems for methane, he said.
The potential, based on European models, is enormous.
A kilogram of biological waste such as food scraps or cooking grease contains enough energy to run a car for a kilometre, MacKay said.
A tonne of discarded organic material yields 4,400 cubic feet of methane, worth about $29 at current natural gas prices.
Now multiply that by the 100,000 tonnes of garbage that Edmonton alone dumps every year and which could be turned into fuel by a Kompogas fermentation plant, MacKay said.
Usable solid waste tossed out annually in Alberta capital region municipalities is about 300,000 tonnes, he estimated.
To start, Sustainable Energy Group will content itself with an initial plant that would scavenge biogas from about 20,000 tonnes a year of biological solid waste, said MacKay. The plant is estimated to cost about $12 million to build. He says the group is negotiating with potential partners in Alberta and Saskatchewan on the project.
The proposed plant, while one-fifth the size of Kompogas operations in Europe, would be big enough to kickstart a Canadian industry by showing the process works on a commercial scale, he says.
But it will take government help to do that, he says.
Once built, the project would support itself without the need of subsidies, said MacKay. “But the whole industry needs investment. Nobody is going to build the first plant unless there is some government money to kickstart it.”
His call for federal, provincial and municipal commitments to alternative energy echoed a theme at a two-day Edmonton biogas energy conference that started last Sunday.
Visiting specialists from Europe and the United States toured government-backed, alternative-fuel projects such as methane extraction and power generation at Edmonton’s Clover Bar waste management centre and Gold Bar wastewater treatment plant.
“Government support has proven to be crucial and very effective,” said German Biogas Association manager Claudius da Costa Gomez.
The availability of subsidies, loans, corporate tax breaks and public information campaigns has helped create an industry operating 2,700 plants in Germany, generating 650 megawatts of power, and spinning off an estimated 8,000 jobs.
Special power regulations pass on to consumers the extra cost of generating electricity with alternative fuels, the German business leader said.
In Canada, the first biogas plant on an Ontario farm is scheduled to start up near London later this year, but Alberta remains the pioneer in the field, with five plants built since 2001.
“We’re looking for opportunities that can make new value chains for farmers,” Alberta Agriculture Minister Doug Horner told the conference.
But he announced no new policy commitments and urged the fledgling biogas industry to recommend actions that would help it grow.
gjaremko@thejournal.canwest.com