Garbage trucks that run on garbage? That’s part of the promise of a new organic waste recycling plant being built in California.
Clean World Partners, a Sacramento-based company that specializes in anaerobic digestion technology, and the area’s local trash hauler, Atlas Disposal Industries, just broke ground on what they say will be the largest plant of its kind. The facility, at the city’s South Area Transfer Station, will process 25 tons of food waste a day when it opens this summer and will expand next year to handle 100 tons a day.
The plant will convert garbage from food processing companies, restaurants and supermarkets into natural gas and electricity. Atlas’s vehicles and others from the surrounding area will use the gas as a replacement for diesel fuel. Once the plant is complete, it’s supposed to produce 2 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year and make enough natural gas to replace a million gallons of diesel.
Clean World already runs a similar plant at American River Packaging in Sacramento. That facility, which opened in April, uses unrecyclable corrugated material from ARP and food waste from Cambell Soup Co. and other food producers to make natural gas. The gas, in turn, is used to generate electricity, supplying 37 percent of the packaging company’s electricity needs.
Anaerobic digestion promises to turn all sorts of icky things, from agricultural waste to sewage, into electricity, heat and fuel. A 2011 report by BCC Research predicts that the market for biogas production equipment will grow worldwide from $3 billion in 2010 to $8.6 billion by 2016. As with many areas of renewable energy, North America is not out in front when it comes to anaerobic digestion. The report says the industry is best developed in Europe, while Asia has the most plants in operation, and the technology is rapidly gaining popularity in Africa.
Still, Sacramento is clearly not the only place in the U.S. where biogas is moving forward. The report finds the market for equipment in this country stood at $510 million in 2011 and predicts it will grow to nearly $1.2 billion by 2016, a growth rate that’s just a bit slower than the global rate.
Via EnvironmentalLeader
Photo credit: Clean World Partners