A food waste digester in southern Sacramento, Calif., is designed to produce biogas that can be treated to make natural gas for hundreds of homes and cars, according to a report in the Sacramento Bee newspaper.
It’s another example of growth in biogas production and of diversification among producers. A company called Clean World Partners has commissioned a digester that will process 25 tons of food scrap daily – supplied by the city’s restaurants, grocery stores and school cafeterias. “By next year, the digester’s capacity will quadruple, allowing Clean World to begin selling thousands of gallons of natural gas to local government and private vehicles,” the newspaper reported.
Clearly the clean-water sector no longer has anything like a corner on the biogas market. One has to wonder: Will there come a time when there is actual competition among private and public entities for feedstocks like food waste, FOG and manures for anaerobic digesters? It’s an interesting prospect to contemplate.
The Sacramento digester was built in just six months after the developer got a $6 million grant from the California Energy Commission – approaching half the construction cost. State officials say the digester will make use of organic waste otherwise sent to landfill and will save on fossil fuels for vehicles and homes.
The news story cited a statistic from the National Resources Defense Council that food waste makes up 20 percent of the nation’s landfill waste. Eventually, the digester will produce enough natural gas to fuel 1,000 vehicles or 500 homes.
The city also plans to explore providing bins where residents could deposit household food scraps that ultimately would feed the digester. You can read more at http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/good-digestions/content?oid=8671033
