Dickinson Faculty Farm’s anaerobic digester is 100% up and operating! This progressive undertaking is the results of over 5 years of planning and vital contributions from our supporters. We couldn’t have made it throughout the end line with out the distinctive grants we acquired for this undertaking. We thank our grant supporters under and supply a snapshot of what our closing report back to a grant-making basis appears to be like like for this undertaking!
In alphabetical order:
Constellation Vitality – Basic development price and engineering
Cumberland County Conservation District & Recycling Bureau – Cattle heavy use space, liquid waste administration system
Betty Richardson Churchill ’58 and her husband, Dan – Alumni Donation – Excessive effectivity followers and basic development
Big Meals Shops & Maintain Pennsylvania Lovely – Energy shed and pipe becoming
Excessive Tide Basis – Anaerobic digester system
John Crain Kunkel Basis – Web site work, supplies dealing with, digester pipefitting
Met-Ed – Electrical engineering and wiring
Pennsylvania Division of Agriculture and Pennsylvania State Conservation Fee – Manure storage, waste administration system
Pennsylvania Division of Environmental Safety – Meals waste grinder and conveyor
South Mountain Partnership – Schooling pavilion
United States Environmental Safety Company: Supporting Anaerobic Digestion in Communities – Anaerobic digester system and meals waste assortment space
USDA Pure Sources Conservation Service – Anaerobic digester system and manure storage tank
Grant Report
Undertaking Title: Neighborhood Waste to Vitality – Small Farm Anaerobic Digestion and Schooling
The Dickinson Faculty Farm, in partnership with Triple L Farm dairy, has constructed an anaerobic digester (biodigester) system for changing meals waste and animal manure into renewable electrical energy and crop fertilizer in Cumberland County PA. By the organic processes of microbial fermentation and methanogenesis, natural residues (neighborhood meals waste and dairy manure) are processed into biogas, a renewable, flamable gasoline that’s used like pure fuel. Our system features a mixed warmth and energy (co-gen) engine used to transform biogas to electrical energy for feeding the facility grid. Biogas turbines lead to local weather pleasant energy that’s carbon impartial. We’re thrilled to report that after fifteen months of development, our accomplished biodigester system is functioning nicely. Now we have been changing dairy manure and meals waste into burnable biogas since late June (2024). The co-gen engine was commissioned by undertaking engineers the final week of July and we at the moment are pushing renewable electrical energy into the utility grid. By August we count on to be producing sufficient renewable electrical energy to energy the farm plus 20-30 houses within the Met Ed energy grid. The partnership with Triple L Farm dairy goes nicely, the cattle are wholesome, and all equipment is operating as meant.
Biodigesters will not be new expertise, however within the US, they’ve been mostly deployed on very giant farms with 500 or extra cows. Nevertheless, the common sized dairy farm in Pennsylvania has solely 100 cows. Our undertaking makes use of newly developed engine expertise to implement a biodigester shared between two small farms, with 100-150 cows plus 2-3 tons per day of neighborhood meals waste. The newly developed Dickinson / Triple L Farm biodigester system gives a working mannequin of a household farm-scaled power system for public, youth, and farmer training, with the objective of stimulating additional improvement of this expertise within the Mid Atlantic within the coming years.
In our first 12 months, now we have already hosted a number of hundred guests from the Carlisle PA area and much past via over forty public excursions. We’re “on the map” and have efficiently unfold the phrase via outreach companions, to the purpose that we now obtain common requests for excursions from our goal audiences – colleges, farmer organizations, lecturers, and recycling professionals. By a small grant from the South Mountain Partnership, we constructed an academic pavilion on the digester web site that facilitates internet hosting of teams in all climate situations. Now we have made good use of our expertise and repute as youth environmental educators in addition to our connections within the mid-Atlantic farming neighborhood to succeed in all kinds of holiday makers. Friends on the biodigester undertaking have ranged from house faculty kindergarten teams to highschool AP science lessons; from 4H summer time camp and a Future Farmers of America annual gathering to the Governor of Pennsylvania and Secretary of Agriculture. Farmers and researchers from quite a few US states and 19 totally different nations have visited the undertaking web site up to now six months.
Our objective is to encourage additional deployment of biodigesters in Pennsylvania and past. Along with free public excursions, within the first 12 months of the undertaking we introduced the outcomes of our undertaking at a number of regional conferences in collaboration with the Heart for Dairy Excellence, Penn State Extension, Pasa Sustainable Agriculture and the Skilled Recyclers of Pennsylvania. The undertaking was featured in a Penn State digital subject day and quite a lot of media from the Nationwide Heart for Acceptable Expertise.
MEASURABLE RESULTS:
One full and useful cutting-edge biodigester system for dairy manure and meals waste.
230,000 lbs of meals waste diverted from landfills within the first undertaking 12 months.
1000+ individuals educated between excursions, classroom visits, convention shows and movies.
We supplied academic content material to 6 totally different colleges and produced or had been featured in no less than 4 publicly obtainable tutorial movies. We additionally hosted one free public musical efficiency centered across the biodigester undertaking.
A second success is in meals waste diversion from landfills. To satisfy the power objectives of the biodigester system, we reached out to quite a few native companies to hunt extra meals waste past that generated by Dickinson Faculty. We now have a meals waste assortment relationship with a number of eating places, a brewery, business bakery, meals financial institution, and colleges. Different relationships in improvement embody the Carlisle hospital system and a business fruit processor. In 12 months 1 of the undertaking, we diverted over 230,000 lbs of meals waste from landfills into the farm’s composting system. This leads to lowered greenhouse fuel emissions whereas additionally conserving landfill house.
PROJECT BUDGET: Whole undertaking price: $2,100,000.00 Grants and price shares had been secured from federal, state and basis sources to finish the whole undertaking funds. Dickinson Faculty out of pocket prices complete over $450,000. We undertaking the income era of the undertaking might be about $50,000 per 12 months, leading to a 9–10-year easy payback on the Faculty’s funding. The academic worth of the undertaking will increase day by day.
Please attain out to Assistant Director of the Faculty Farm & Vitality Tasks Supervisor Matt Steiman at steimanm@dickinson.edu, or farm@dickinson.edu with questions!
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PA Governor & Ag Secretary go to the undertaking: https://youtu.be/GGhcGrRj_tc?si=fF1QbBSjSdKGE_Nu
Nationwide Heart for Acceptable Expertise Podcast: https://attra.ncat.org/episode-350-mid-scale-biodigester-with-matt-steiman-of-dickinson-college/
Vitality Imaginative and prescient award winner October 2023. https://energy-vision.org/ev-newsletter/ev-honors-2023-clean-energy-leadership-awardees-at-october-gala/
