By Joel Tiller
On any given day up to 800 cattle are fed, cleaned and milked – sometimes twice a day – at Stanton Farms’ new facility in Ilderton Ont.
To some this may seem less than impressive, or, perhaps, the norm for a farm of this magnitude. But Stanton Farms isn’t your typical dairy farm. Far from it in fact.
What makes this farm unique is it moonlights as a small power plant – converting its never-ending supply of manure into electricity using an anaerobic biodigester.
“The thought of all cattle farms being labelled factory farms disturbs me … we counter this myth by engaging in environmentally, and animal, friendly practices,” says Laurie Stanton, a third generation dairy farmer.
Since early 2009, Stanton Farms has actively used its operating biodigester to convert all its organic waste into renewable energy – a feat it shares with only six other large-scale dairy farms in the entire country.
“Years ago we sort of followed this movement, but quickly realized the technical support wasn’t there,” Stanton says.
“It took a lot of extensive research, and visiting operating digesters on other farms, before we decided it was the right time to do this.”
Situated only metres from the farm’s massive free-stall barn sits the Andigen Induced Blanket Reactor (IBR), or biodigester. It resembles a brewery of sorts consisting of eight 33 ft. high by 13 ft. wide tanks that hold approximately 117,000 litres of waste. All eight tanks are housed in a building that never dips below 37 degrees Celsius, and each one functions the same way a human stomach does.
Manure, collected on the farm, is housed in the tanks where microbes, or microscopic organisms, feed on the sludge for approximately five days giving off a biogas composed largely (60 per cent) of a gas called methane. This methane is then siphoned from the tank and used as fuel to power generators that create electricity.
Canadian farmers, in regards to implementing independently run renewable energy facilities on their properties, seem to be taking their time in exploring and adopting this revolutionary technology.
Germany, for instance, has over 4,000 on-farm biodigesters generating over 1,400 megawatts of renewable energy. To put this in perspective, the average nuclear reactor generates 500 megawatts of energy.
Today, Stanton Farms is ramping up its first phase of energy production, and hope to increase its current production of 300 kilowatts of renewable energy to 1.3 megawatts in 2010. To put these figures in perspective, 1.3 megawatts will generate enough energy to power over 800 homes – more than the entire town of Ilderton.
Not only is the farm’s current rate of energy production enough to power both the biodigester and the farm on a full-time basis, but the residual byproducts – a clear and odourless liquid and a strained fibre-like substance – are used as a fertilizer during the late summer months and bedding for the cows respectively.
“This is the direction animal agriculture needs to go,” says Stanton.
“It (the industry) needs to start dealing more with environmental issues. What we’re doing today is the future of animal agriculture.”
However, it was only a few years ago, when Stanton wondered if he had seen his last days of farming.
He was faced with a dilemma when the piece of land on which Stanton Farms had originally operated, near London’s Hyde Park area, had quickly become surrounded by the city’s creeping urban sprawl shortly after the turn of the century.
Forced to uproot and seek greener pastures (for a lack of a better term) Stanton considered giving up the business altogether.
Instead, with the mindset and motivation to carry on his family’s legacy, Stanton moved his farm and his family to Ilderton – a 15-minute drive outside of London’s downtown.
The move, in Stanton’s opinion, was the perfect opportunity to jump on the green energy wave by outfitting the premises with a biodigester.
Teaming up with Garry Fortune, an alternative energy consultant based out of Amherstburg Ont., the $4.5 million project began in 2006 and was completed in late 2008 after nearly three years of construction.
Unfortunately, the Ontario Power Authority has been less than accommodating when it comes to both Stanton and Fortune realizing the true potential of the clean green energy they are creating on the farm.
“They have this ruling that says if we develop any byproducts then they will claim 80 per cent of any revenue generated from that,” says Fortune.
“Quite frankly I don’t even think Tony Soprano would try something like that.”
Fortune is certain the Power Authority’s mandate regarding expected revenue from any byproduct generated will stifle future research innovation. Especially when other jurisdictions in, and outside of, Canada are offering both farmers and academics incentives for pursuing research in renewable and alternative energies.
Similarly, the heat recouped from the engines powering the facility’s biodigester is used to heat the building that actually houses it, and preheats the organic waste before it enters the biodigester. Both processes assist in speeding up the digestion process.
This method of using heat generated by one action to power another is often referred to as cogeneration, and Canadian farms that employ this type of system in their everyday practices are offered incentives by the federal government. But, again, the OPA has told both Stanton and Fortune they will insist on claiming half of any incentive the farm receives.
“What the OPA is failing to recognize is that we’re creating a green rural economy too,” Fortune says.
“When the equipment breaks down I don’t go out and fix it. We call the local electricians and plumbers.”
Not only is Stanton Farms’ biodigester a source of renewable energy and a boost to the local economy, but the methane captured during the digestion process – a gas 21 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2 – is no longer released into the atmosphere when Stanton fertilizes his pasture. As a result, the amount of greenhouse gas emitted into the air is significantly reduced.
Bureaucratic obstacles aside, in 2008 Stanton Farms was recognized by the Ontario Energy Association (OEA) for its innovation in renewable energy – an award both Stanton and Fortune credit to the unique process of biodigestion.
The generation of renewable energy from biodigesters, like the one on Stanton Farms, differs dramatically from the energy produced from both wind turbines and solar cells in that it does not rely on external factors such as wind or sunlight. The biodigester can, and is, operational 24 hours a day seven days a week.
“We will eventually be powering up the entire town of Ilderton 24/7 on clean, green renewable energy,” says Fortune.
“It’s the only community, to my knowledge, that will be receiving this kind of power.”
But, what’s most important for both Stanton and Fortune is maintaining the farm’s, and those who run it, reputation of being clean and friendly towards the earth and its neighbours.
“We want to be good neighbours,” says Stanton.
“We’re raising some legitimate issues here at the farm, but it’s those we serve who are most important to us.”