The Integrated Farm
In a small town in north east Oregon along the southern banks of the Columbia River, a very special farm, encompassing 100 square miles, milks 26,000 cows per day. That's not what makes it special; it's what's done with the waste that sets it apart from other dairy farms. What follows is an overview of the process:
Manure from the dairy farm and other high methane potential waste streams, is converted from biomass to biogas. The gas is cleaned and used in engine generators to generate approximately 10 megawatts of power. Waste heat from the engines is used to heat a digester. Effluent from the digester is dewatered, and solids from the digester are used in the dairy for bedding the dairy cows.
Integrated with this process, corn grown on the farm and imported from surrounding areas and the Midwest, will be used in a corn to ethanol plant. A portion of the exhaust heat from the engine generators produces steam for the plant. Fluidized bed boilers utilize yard waste and other biomass waste streams to produce high-pressure steam which drives an extraction steam turbine.
The turbine produces more power (10 MW), and the extracted steam from the turbine provides another source of energy to run the ethanol plant.
Wet distillers grain, a high protein residual from the ethanol plant, is fed to the dairy cows. CO2, which is a by-product of ethanol fermentation, is cleaned, compressed, and sold.
For a downloadable graphic of the process, please click on the Integrated Farm PDF link below.
"Biomass power plants already provide the largest U.S. source of renewable energy, and ethanol plants the only renewable alternative to imported oil. Biomass program conversion technology can make the former much more efficient and greatly expand available feedstocks for the latter."
- US Department of Energy
Bob Harris
Chairman
206.494.9401
robert.harris@harrisgroup.com
Doug Dudgeon
Manager
206-494-9519
doug.dudgeon@harrisgroup.com
John Jobe
Director, Capital Projects
800.488.7410
john.jobe@harrisgroup.com
