Regional biomass plants on agenda
Nathan Leaf reports in the Wisconsin State Journal on a conference for small farms to join forces on energy generation from manure:
Farmers, food producers and state officials will meet in Richland Center this week to discuss how to turn refuse into revenue.
The Richland County Economic Development Corp. will hold a conference Thursday and Friday on the formation of biomass centers: smaller farms that pool their manure with nearby farms or food producers and then pipe the waste into anaerobic digesters to generate electricity and gas.
Bruce Bullamore, executive director for the EDC, said the regional centers make sense because most state farmers don’t have herds large enough to make the use of individual anaerobic digesters economically viable.
“Anaerobic digestion systems, systems that can take manure and turn it into electricity or into gas, they only work when the individual entity has got 400 or 500 cows,” Bullamore said. “Now, when you look at that statewide, that means that only 2 percent of the farms in the state can take advantage of this technology.”
With the large volume of waste produced by some food operations, Bullamore said the companies make an ideal partner for farmers in the biomass centers. He said biomass centers would also help alleviate the strain such operations put on municipal sanitation systems.
During the conference, speakers will discuss the criteria for a regional biomass center. Foremost, is the number of cows in the county and the proximity of farms and food producers.
“They have to be in a two- to three-mile radius so that it’s economical to lay pipes and pipe the materials,” he said. “So far, everybody that has tried to truck materials has had problems.”
Bullamore is working on setting up the first regional biomass center just outside of Richland Center and is in discussions with local food production operations and five farmers. “There’s just all sorts of economic opportunities that could come off of these farm digesters,” he said. There’s probably 49 out of the 72 counties in the state that could develop such digesters.”
If you go
Registration for the conference on regional biomass centers will begin at 8 a.m. Thursday at the White House Ramada Inn, 1450 Veterans Drive, Richland Center. The conference concludes Friday. Call 608-647-4310 for more information.
