Ground was broken this past September for the Cayuga County community digester at the county campus on County House Road.
The digester will use a process known as “anaerobic digestion” to treat manure from several nearby farms and organic wastes from area food processors. Anaerobic digestion is a waste treatment process that has been used for years to treat municipal wastewater. Bacteria that thrive in the absence of oxygen break down the waste, produce “biogas,” and greatly reduce the odor. Biogas contains mainly carbon dioxide and methane.
In the Cayuga community digester, the biogas will be captured and burned in a generator to producer 625 kilowatts of electricity for the nearby buildings. Excess electricity will be sold to the grid. Water heated by the engine that powers the generator will also be used on the campus. Thus the digester will reduce the county's fuel and electricity bills for the campus, using a source of energy that is renewable. Reducing the use of fossil fuel also helps reduce the release of “greenhouse gases” (carbon dioxide, methane) which cause global warming.
The Soil and Water Conservation District will truck manure to the digester from several dairy farms that have a combined total of about 1,500 cows. Digesters are expensive, and these small- to mid-sized dairies could not afford to each build their own digester. Sharing a community digester is much more economical.
After 21 days in the digester, the manure odor will be reduced to almost nothing, because the methane bacteria dine on the smelly compounds. After removing the solids, the district will then truck the treated manure back to the farms, where the nutrients will be recycled back onto cropland. Satellite storages will be cozrm manure hauling.
The district will sell the separated solids as an organic fertilizer, as well as mix them with compost materials to make a blend that will be ideal for the county's soil stabilization programs, including highway shoulder reseeding and soil erosion control projects.
In the Cayuga community digester, the biogas will be captured and burned in a generator to producer 625 kilowatts of electricity for the nearby buildings. Excess electricity will be sold to the grid. Water heated by the engine that powers the generator will also be used on the campus. Thus the digester will reduce the county's fuel and electricity bills for the campus, using a source of energy that is renewable. Reducing the use of fossil fuel also helps reduce the release of “greenhouse gases” (carbon dioxide, methane) which cause global warming.
The Soil and Water Conservation District will truck manure to the digester from several dairy farms that have a combined total of about 1,500 cows. Digesters are expensive, and these small- to mid-sized dairies could not afford to each build their own digester. Sharing a community digester is much more economical.
After 21 days in the digester, the manure odor will be reduced to almost nothing, because the methane bacteria dine on the smelly compounds. After removing the solids, the district will then truck the treated manure back to the farms, where the nutrients will be recycled back onto cropland. Satellite storages will be cozrm manure hauling.
The district will sell the separated solids as an organic fertilizer, as well as mix them with compost materials to make a blend that will be ideal for the county's soil stabilization programs, including highway shoulder reseeding and soil erosion control projects.
