Boise, Idaho, Anaerobic Digester to Process Multiple Streams to Increase Efficiency
By Arlene Karidis, Waste 360.
Idaho-based developer Boise Biogas is working with two tech companies to install an anaerobic digestion (AD) system that will be fed by various feedstocks to produce pipeline gas for local distributors and fertlizer for local farmers.
Boise Biogas, which will own and run the operation, is in the late stages of rezoning and finalizing the land purchase. It hopes to begin injecting into the pipeline by late 2018.
The partners are shooting for a zero waste facility and materials with greater than five percent contamination will be rejected, says Will Charlton, president of Digester Doc, a Boise, Idaho-based lab services company that optimizes AD systems. Charlton was contracted for this project, which will process 1,500 wet tons a day.
Boise Biogas’ original plan was only to generate electricity to run its equipment.
“But our reach expanded because we found in the Treasure Valley area there is a surplus of organics that was ending up on local landfills or being trucked to remote sites,” says Chuck Anderson, president and director of engineering and operations for Boise Biogas. “They were starting to fill up. Plus, dairy farms were asking for help with manure management…. We thought anaerobic digestion was the best way to create a useable energy product from all this waste.”